In France, about all drugs come in blister packs. I had no clue it was different elsewhere. And I don’t think the reason is a shortage of trained pharmacists. In fact, it seems weird to imagine a pharmacist wasting his time counting pills instead of handing a prepackaged box.
ETA : don’t you have a detailled notice along the drugs handed out by the pharmacist? Since here it’s in the box, I’m wondering if you don’t get one in the US or if the pharmacist hands it to you separately.
I rarely take meds now that I’m not on contraceptive pills any more, but I’ve gotten various meds for dogs and cats and the blister packs are a pain in the ass unless quite flimsy. Although I can see the advantages - child-resistant, easily identifiable, keeping them dry, etc.
I know some people who take multiple meds a day use pill organizers, like these:
I use pill caddies, but I haven’t yet found one to open the blister packs for me!
I TRIED to use a knife to cut the Imitrex out of the BPs, and I ended up chipping the tablets.
And I’m such a klutz, I’m afraid the knife will slip and slice my hand. Yes, I’m THAT clumsy. (But hey, I’d get to see the kewl Vulcan blood!)
~VOW
Unit Dose packaging (blister packed pills, sealed single-shot cups for liquids) is the preferred form for institutional (nursing facility, hospital) pharmacies who must dispense to inpatients/residents, as it allows the meds to be sent all the way from the pharmacy to the patient’s room in a safer, more accountable manner (the unit dose pack has the lot number printed on it). OTOH for* outpatient *dispensing (say, the same patient is discharged home) very often the same meds will be stored in bulk and dispensed in bottles, specially if they are generics, mostly to save on the additional packaging. For some outpatient meds even you have a variation on the bulk dispensing: before Cozaar (losartan), blood pressure medicine, went generic, it came fom the factory in 30-count bottles - a month’s supply. So for my prescription, 1 50mg tablet a day with monthly refills, the pharmacist would just slap the prescription label right on the side of the sealed unopened bottle.
Where are the tree huggers when we need them?
I have a related question: Why are American blister packs so $#%# hard to open?? Most prescription meds in Japan come in standard blister packs that are extremely easy to open - the transparent plastic is fairly thin and soft, and the backing is a thin metal foil. It doesn’t take much force to push the pill through the foil. American blister packs are significantly harder to open.
I have to say, its the case pretty much every where I go except N America for some reason. My Grandmother (God rest her soul) had a Chemist she always used and he was about the only one not in the US that I know of who put medicines in a prescription bottle. And it was an old old family business type of enterprise. Note I said “was”.
It’s the American obsession with childproofing everything. A parent who was too lazy to teach his child not to take medicine without permission once sued, and everyone has to suffer as a result.
Aussie here: The majority of medications I have taken came in blister packs. I have never had any problems popping the pills out. These of the blister packs came in a factory sealed cardboard box with a leaflet about how to use/side effects/warnings etc…
I’m not sure I buy that explanation. It hinges on the assumption that children have less strength than everyone else.
None of the blister packs I’ve ever come across have been even slightly difficult to get pills out of. And for the folks who talk about packaging cost, I doubt any significant difference exists. Glass bottles would cost more than plastic and cardboard, and my WAG is that savings from that on the macro scale probably don’t turn out to be significant, or quite a few other countries would follow the US system, and it doesn’t seem they do.
That. French blister packs are similar and extremely easy to open. At first I was assuming that posters were exagerating the difficulty just because they don’t like blisters, but after so many posts from people stating they need knives or scissors to open them, I suppose it’s not just a fidget of their imagination.
The perception of safety is what’s important here, not actual safety.
Amazing how the issue that I found strangest about the “counted by the pharmacist” US model is something which hasn’t even been mentioned, with several American posters informing us of their hate for blister packs and several non-Americans reporting (and I can confirm it) that US blister packs appear to have been designed by the same people who design toy packages, while blisters elsewhere are not.
What I found enormously confusing and irritating is that whenever I bought any medication (be it OTC or prescribed) in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Mexico or the UK, it came in a bottle or in blisters, in a box, and within that box a piece of paper. Box, blister or bottle and paper list the components of the medication; the paper contains information which in the US used to require access to a Pharmacopoeia (nowadays you can find it on the internet), such as what is the medication approved for, possible interactions, dosages for different kinds of treatment (eg., the amount of aspirin you may be prescribed due to a history of heart condition is different from the dosage for a headache), etc.
How come in pretty much any country a patient must be given that information, whereas in the US a prescription will likely only carry the name of the drug, the name of patient and doctor, and the dosage, and often IME not even all four?
Not directly connected, but one of the reasons the UK gave for forcing certain medications to be blister pack only (for example, paracetamol) was that it reduced overdoses. The theory went that the time taken to individually remove each pill, as opposed to opening a bottle and swallowing the contents, gave the person a chance to rethink what they are doing.
No idea if it actually works, but it is the reason I have read.
This isn’t consistent with the fact that most drugs are just put in an ordinary bottle, though.
Childproof lid, surely?
Um - they do, don’t they? At least, I can still wrestle my 8yo onto the ground without half trying and one hand behind my back.
bldysabba writes:
> None of the blister packs I’ve ever come across have been even slightly difficult
> to get pills out of. And for the folks who talk about packaging cost, I doubt any
> significant difference exists. Glass bottles would cost more than plastic and
> cardboard, and my WAG is that savings from that on the macro scale probably
> don’t turn out to be significant, or quite a few other countries would follow the
> US system, and it doesn’t seem they do.
Um, you are aware, aren’t you, that pharmacists in the U.S. who dispense drugs by putting them into bottles use plastic bottles, not glass ones?
Incidentally, it’s becoming increasingly common in the U.S. for people who take prescription drugs on a long-term basis get their drugs directly by mail from their insurance companies (or, to be exact, from a contractor for their insurance companies) rather than from a pharmacy. It’s just as easy for the patient to wait a couple of days for the drugs to arrive by mail as to go to the pharmacy and wander around the store for a half an hour as the pharmacist fills the prescription. It’s cheaper for the insurance company to do its own filling of prescriptions.
Generally speaking, that’s true, although I think the “childproof” test (and yes, there are tests that packaging has to pass to be legal to use) relies on a combination of strength and dexterity, and sometimes sheer size of hands, that small children don’t have. (No one’s concerned about protecting the 12 year olds, it’s the 2 year olds we’re worried about.) Unfortunately, that strength and dexterity is also often absent in elderly or seriously ill adults. :smack:
Either your experience is out of date, or your pharmacy is in some pretty serious violation of federal drug administration laws. That stuff does have to be distributed by pharmacies here. Often, they’ll give you the packet insert (printed by the drug company) inside the bottle or box or bag AND their own informational sheet (printed by the pharmacy) stapled to the outside of the bag.