My GP surgery gets literally nothing right

Not much use to this thread other than purely complaining. My IBD nurse arranged a prescription for 8 weeks of 9mg budesonide (Entocort). Picked up the prescription two days ago, only to find out I had enough for just over a month. There were no instructions given about tapering off either.

I phoned up the surgery just now and spoke to a receptionist who said she would put the message through to a GP. The chances are nobody will call back, which means I will have to phone up again at some point and repeat the ****ing utterly tedious cycle of relaying my message and waiting for a GP to get back to me.

I could change GP surgeries but have very little choice, since I'm bound by postcode and all the other GP surgeries in my catchment area get just as bad reviews. Bureaucracy has ruined the NHS. It's always like this now - just endless chasing up of one thing after another.

The moral of the story is to just not fall ill, unless you are so rich your country's healthcare system makes no odds. It's bad enough being ill, but it's almost as miserable dealing with the system.

Arrgh!! I'm frustrated for you! Is there any way to show up in person at the office? Would that even help? Or you could call once a day every day until they get so sick of your calling that they actually respond. Squeaky wheel gets the grease! Politeness gets you nowhere, at least that's my experience. Sorry. Try to deal with it once a day, and then focus away from it and do something else so it doesn't drive you crazy.

Thanks, gumby and Rose! I could just show up - I don't think it will make much difference, but it's only a 5-minute drive away. The one saving grace of this practice is the receptionists are actually helpful, which is a first. Sadly they can't actually prescribe me medication though - if they could do that, I don't think I'd ever bother with a GP again.

I think I'm depressed again. It took me forever to reply to the last thread and I still feel like it was a crap reply - I couldn't be reassuring and I didn't have any other options to suggest. I've started the budesonide today at any rate.

Second day of budesonide and it appears to have done crap all so far. I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard... :-/

CCinPA - Your post gives me a tad more hope. I'm used to prednisolone working from the first day I started it and have been regretting not asking for pred over budesonide. However I wanted something with fewer side-effects and which I can safely stay on for a longer period of time - if budesonide does put me into remission, then I'm going to try to stay on it for a few months. I do intend on starting 6MP or azathioprine but that won't be for a while yet (my IBD clinic appointment isn't until late April, which I'm also annoyed about).

And yeah, budesonide is the same thing as Uceris. I'm actually taking what appears to be a Spanish brand of Entocort - budesonide is the generic version of both Uceris and Entocort.