Need to vent

Hi there I just need to write it down and maybe you guys can give me a better perspective on things.

As I mentioned in my other post, I was on Lovenox for 3 weeks meaning I had to give myself a syringe shot every day. The needle retracts and I collected them all. After I was done I didn't just want to throw them in the house trash. I took out time of my day, exhausted as I was, and drove over to my pharmacy where I always pick up my medicine if I need them quick. I have a home delivery pharmacy too but they are useless when I need meds the same day. Anyways, so I drive there. I saw that they have a big disposal box for used medicine but it was locked. I waited in line. The lady I got was a pharmacist and she started telling me that she can only take "prescribed" medications. I was already thinking "Does she assume I'm an addict or something". I try to explain to her that I want to do the responsible thing and dispose of my needles with the pharmacy instead of throwing them in the house trash. She just kind of brushes me off. At that point I get upset and said "OK then I will throw them in my house trash". I walk out of the pharmacy and put my 42 syringes in the trash bin in front of their door while a I assume homeless guy looked on. I do not care if he fished them out of the trash and reused my needles. I tried to do the right thing but I was rejected. I feel discriminated because 1) she kept mentioning she can only take used prescription and assumed I was an addict 2) I have an accent not from this country 3) I was white and she was of color and she just doesn't like white people? She should have just helped me!

I will have another surgery and knowing my surgeon he will give me another 3 weeks round worth of Lovenox with 21 syringes. I already told the pharmacy that I'm a chronically ill person and will never fill with them again and they probably don't care because they have enough "customers". I still need to find a new pharmacy which is near me but I worry about that later. I'm just so upset especially when I read online that you can go there and dispose of your syringes. When I look online there is a police station which takes syringes but I don't want to go to a police station. They will even more think I'm an addict or something!

Maybe I got the whole thing wrong and they are in absolute no obligation to take used medication and syringes but I need you guys to tell me. Either way, thanks for letting me vent.

I didn't see anything about yelling?

I can think of my own experiences where I felt judged and reacted in a non-optimal or overly emotional way....it happens....

If it says on their website they take syringes then they ought to take them. Added to which as i understand they come from a prescription anyway? In that case I might write a letter to the management to explain and complain about what happened. And when faced with a similar situation in the future maybe try saying "But it says on your website..." or "But these are prescribed" (i don't see why that matters anyway, even if you would be an addict)

I am also an immigrant (in europe) and i love this country but sometimes stuff happens where i think the person is judging/discriminating/looking down on me as a foreigner. It does not help that when i speak the local language I'm not fluent and sound like an idiot as a result. I really struggle with knowing if my suspensions about the person are paranoia or intuition.

I worked in retail pharmacy many years, I understand why it frustrated you but I have to admit I get why she said it. First, about half of customers treat the pharmacy staff horribly. So you probably caught her having a horrible day. We deal with addicts every day. It’s bad, worse in some areas than others. We try to divert needle customers. It’s sad, but we didn’t want to be that kind of place. Every day I had to tell someone who said they needed to buy syringes “for their cat” to go elsewhere. Maybe she didn’t realize it was lovenox. Anyway, just use an empty laundry detergent or fabric softener bottle if you ever use needles again. It’s a cheap sharps container

Thank you all for the feedback. I will not ask them again. However I researched it and found that this particular pharmacy disposes of used needles. That's why I came there. If I knew it was against policy I would never ask something like that.

To asellers I didn't need to buy syringes. I needed to dispose and asked for help to safely do so. I tried to do the responsible thing. But from what I can tell here I did the wrong thing. The needles retract after use so I put them in a regular trash bin.

I will ask my surgeon not to give me lovenox again.

Millions and millions of people are putting many millions of insulin needles in the trash every day. It is safer now that they are pen-tips and not full blown syringes. But there is no policy/law about having to dispose of needles in a certain way. Rules do vary by state, but the general advice is to put in a strong container and place in household trash (not recycle). I can't see why any pharmacy would provide a service for something that can be put in the trash. Because there is concern about antibiotics, hormones, and other drugs getting into the water table, they provide bins for that. But that is called UNUSED MEDICINE

Even getting a sharps container (or using a detergent bottle) just protects the people picking up trash. Eventually it is all in a dump or landfill and the "sharps" still exist. Society might need better way of dealing with this in future.

If these were empty pens, or used pen tips, from a prescribed medication they should have been accepted if they accepted needles. I doubt they did. My pharmacy has a bin for disposing of unused medication. It does not have a bin for medical waste. The two are different.

I read the pharmacist kept saying they only took "prescribed medication" and the key word is medication. Used needles are not medication. They are medical waste. Now, if the pharmacy had a bin (or stated policy) of accepting medical waste, then they should have been taken.

But I have to wonder if you kept saying "but this is medical waste that was prescribed" and the pharmacist keep replying "we only take medication". Perhaps a more savvy pharmacist might have said, "oh that is waste, and we only take medication". Anyway, I wonder if you just repeatedly did not understand what she was saying (maybe because of uneasiness about addict implication of needles) and the pharmacist complicated things by not restating and clarifying instead of just repeating.

Post Edited (DBwithUC) : 5/8/2019 11:17:48 AM (GMT-6)