i mean they have expiration dates too. But they’re not liquid. I think that’s the issue.
Again, it appears that you have struck pharmacist gold. The pharmacist at our walgreens is only available for 30 second consultations with the phone on his shoulder. I have never seen the same one twice.
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Wow! I go every month to Costco and they’ve never ordered it early. I’m asking the pharmacist. Thanks for the tip @docslotnick!
Totally. And while many are necessary as @tia pointed out, it occurred to me that not all are lifesaving like insulin is. It’s not an optional med (which most people would say about whatever they have to take daily).
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True! But most of them are chemical products, and will probably still be good after I have been dead and buried for long enough that my kids will have forgetten where the cemetery is… Even for biological products like antibiotics, which I am more hesitant to use when expired, a good doctor friend of mine who has served in many places of Asia and Africa with Medecins Sans Frontieres tells me that he has used antibiotics expired for many years with hardly any problem (not quite zero though).
Btw, the reason for his sometimes using expired medicine is when they use local government stockpiles that have sometimes not been renewed since colonial times…
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I have to say, Mike, my pharmacist, is a really nice guy. Never too busy to come talk to me or answer a question.
But it seems all of the pharmacists I’ve had have been pretty much the same. I guess I must be pretty lucky.
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In Wisconsin we have also have very good luck with almost all the pharmacists we have worked with, even at Walgreens. Our mail order pharmacy is much harder to work with, but mostly because of workflow, not because their people are nasty.
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Pills have an expiration date just like insulin.
You should read my next post: Insurance now requires pharmacies to pick SHORT end of prescription range? - #44 by Michel
Hard on my tiny phone.
Anyway I’ve used insulin expired for years and not had any problems either… I don’t think it’s a fair characterization that most meds don’t go bad but insulin does…
Anything will go bad if not handled properly
I actually would say our pharmacists are very caring and nice. The woman who was arguing with the insurance company to get Samson his Vimpat last time was nearly in tears, saying things like “this baby needs this medicine, how can you be so nasty! He needed his dose an hour ago!” etc… but obviously they can’t lose their license over these kinds of things, so she had to work within the system and wait until the approvals came through on her system. She did make sure to negotiate an extra refill on the pharmacy prescription, without our even having to ask, in case we got into this scenario again, and she talked with me to figure out a workaround so that we could still get our mail order prescription working while also having a backup at this pharmacy. The other time I was in this situation, the pharmacists kept calling the doctor’s office multiple times to ensure she got the prescription on time. She didn’t have to do that, really. So in general I feel like pharmacists are pretty caring and certainly do their best. But they’re busy, and it isn’t their job really to tell patients how to navigate the byzantine, archaic, ridiculous and cruel booby-trap-laden obstacle course that makes up our healthcare system. So they might sometimes stop their usual day-to-day routine to explain to a patient how to get the right workaround, but usually only once they see a patient is under duress and really needs the help.
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Also the insurance doesn’t dictate what meds you can have and when, only what they’ll pay for
This is why I despise the current system which relies 100% on a third party to pay for everything… gives corporate interests way too much power
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well but in this case, the other issue is that the DEA has created all sorts of onerous obstacles to getting an adequate supply of the medication, and those are bashing up against the also-onerous-bureaucracy-saturated systems needed to get the medicine through insurance. Trying to go around the latter, we found we were somehow running afoul of the former. It’s all a mess.
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@TiaG I agree the new DEA rules for narcotics make those of us with actual needs suffer because they have been over-prescribed in the past so a mfr can make their share value. I’m not against the tracking aspects, but I am against the inefficiency and attitude that you the patient must be an addict that has been built into the new system.
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When using pump, its not just the amount used for daily basal, bolus. The length of tubing, leftover insulin in cartridge, also has to be factored in.
I’m currently trying to get correct RX wording for Afrezza script. But my plan for bolus is combination of pump insulin plus Afrezza.
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I understand all of that, but the prescription should be worded in simple black and white unambiguous terms. Eg “33 units per day. 1000 units = 30 day supply”
The wording for afrezza scripts is a real challenge because it comes in fixed quantity configurations and doctors aren’t used to taking the time to figure out how to prescribe med that’s packaged that way. They need to precisely describe the contents of the box they want you to receive, and there are only a few to chose from. Actually the best luck I’ve had is to use my mail order pharmacy’s website to select the exact medication from a list and have them send the request for approval to my doctor.
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Thats basically where i’m at now.
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Did that mental picture in your head have the pharmacists trying to use a pill cutter on the vial and it skittering across the counter and across the floor? Because mine did, and that’s why I’m laughing now.
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So I picked up my monthly insulin pen prescription today. I get one box (5 pens) per month. When I grabbed the paper prescription bag out of the drive thru window drawer, I was immediately concerned bc I felt individual pens and not a box of pens. I opened the paper bag right there before driving off and asked why I was not given the box. The pharmacy tech said that they must have split boxes of pens for other people who don’t get a whole box, and they gave me the odd assortment from different boxes.
So even though I get a box, I don’t get a box. Or the medicine insert that comes in the box. Wowzers.
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so messed up.
That would infuriate me