Nope, always count by five’s… However, I have seen counting trays that allow you to slide to both sides, I’ve been tempted to make a joke about it.
No, didn’t know what I wanted to be for the longest time. I think I made my mind up around the time I was 23 years old.
I’m sure you could if you really wanted, but I can’t tell you how. Think that would be more of a GQ question.
Which high blood pressure medications have ‘increased urination frequency’ as a side effect?
What’s the interaction between alcohol and Darvocet?
Is Tramadol a controlled substance in the United States?
Does Flomax cause retrograde ejaculation?
Anything that is a diuretic, which the two most common types is HCTZ (Hydrochlorthiazide) which is mixed with many many diffrent blood pressure medications, and Furosomide (Lasix)
Davocet is a combanation drug containing propoxyphene, a narcotic analgesic, and acetaminophen (tylenol). Alcohol is a CNS depressant and can enhance the sedation effects of propoxyphene, but Acetaminophen is the major reason you should drink alcohol. Acetaminophen is metabolized in the liver (the same as EtOH), and the combination of Acetaminophen and EtOH causes severe liver toxicity.
It is not currently scheduled, however there is talk of it being federaly scheduled in the Controlled Substance Act. It might be controlled in some states though.
I would need to look this up, and unfortunately I don’t have my reference material on me right now. Wouldn’t surprise me if it did however.
Do you have an undergrad degree? What is it in?
Right! 
From what I read, Flomax does not ‘officially’ cause retrograde ejaculation, but from the stories I saw and my own (quite startling) experience, it does.
One of the best political arguments I ever got into was over prescription medication. As I understand it is illegal for a pharmacy to give out certain medications unless they have been prescibed by a doctor. The libertarian in me thinks that shouldn’t be criminal; that you ought to be able to purchase anything you like from a pharmacy without limitation. By and large you’d be monumentally stupid to medicate yourself without a doctor’s advice, but you ought to have the right to be monumentally stupid. The pharmacy could have their own policies in place to require a prescription if they wanted, but that would be up to the business and not the cops.
As a pharmacist (to-be), what do you think?
Can you tell me how to set up a filter for the nitration of glycerin?
How difficult is it to get the digitalis out of Foxglove or the actonites from Monk’sHood or Nightshade?
I’ll be back with serious questions when I can think of some.
Sandoz is a major generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, a subsidiary of Novartis. They manufacture Eyelube (as well as injectables, ophthalmics and suppositories) at a plant about 20 mins from where I live. You should order their products, just 'cuz (I know people who work there).
But you didn’t answer my question - isn’t “Eyelube” a terrible name? It’s almost as bad as Creo-Rectal, also made by Sandoz. One day, I’d like to interview the people who come up with their generic marketing names. Better than PMS, though… really, what was Pharmascience thinking when they came up with that abbreviation?
I actually have an Associates in Pre-Pharmacy from the local community college. The people in my class range the whole spectrum to no other degree, Associates, Bachelors (normally in Chemistry or Biology), and I think there is even someone who has a Masters in something.
I think this is a VERY bad idea, but probably not for the reason you think. One of the most important medications to control is antibiotics. If you could go down to the local drug store, and pickup any antibiotic you want when you don’t need it, all the bacteria will get resistant to it, and they won’t be there when you need it. Antibiotic resistance is a major problem as is, I would not want to open up laws to make it even worse.
No idea on either of these, think that is something a chemist could probably answer better then I can.
Oh, I know who Sandoz is, I just never heard of Eyelube. It is a pretty bad name, since I’ve never actually filled for it, it doesn’t sound THAT bad. Now, when some pretty girl comes up to the counter and asks for a refill of her EyeLube, I’ll probably agree with you
How much of your schooling deals with customer service?
My pharmacy (in a grocery store) is always jammed. Those cats are working their butts off back there! It seems like they are always having to deal with confused old people, cranky sick people and whiny folks who just want to get their prescription and go home. And of course everyone is big on “blaming the messenger” when the insurance company or the doctor’s office is being problematic.
Seems to me that being a pharmacist is 50% knowing your drug shit and 50% dealing with customers. Am I way off?
In the way you would think about it, pretty much none. We have some classes on the correct way to council someone, but nothing really on customer service.
One reason the pharmacists you see in retail are decent at customer service might be a bit of self-selection. If you are a pharmacist who doesn’t like, or get along with, people, then most likely you would choose a job that doesn’t involve a lot of person-person contact, like working in a hospital pharmacy.
How much formal education will you receive on the subject of diversion?
Here’s a question I thought of last night- I get my prescriptions in 3 month batches. They live in my bathroom. Is it possible that near the end of the three months the meds aren’t as potent?
Re: Those meds that have warnings like “Women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant should not take or handle Avodart…”
What do female pharmacists of child-bearing age do when they have to fill a prescription for such a drug? Just pass it off to a male colleague? Wear gloves and hope for the best?
I hope the OP doesn’t mind me answering this one!
It’s possible, yes, but I cannot say how probably. In fact, though, it’s recommended that you don’t store most medications in the bathroom because of the humidity and temperature extremes that room has; most drugs are tested under long-term conditions of 25C/60% relative humidity as part of their approval and continuing stability studies. Any package that tells you to store medication in the fridge probably means it; for whatever reason the data collected at 25/60 wasn’t adequate and the colder temperature is safer.
That being said, there are a lot of drugs that can sit around at 40C/75 RH for a very long time, and have nothing happen to them, just as there are some that begin to degrade in a couple of months, or only after a year, or whenever. Really, the only people who can say if that’s the case for the meds you take are the pharmaceutical company that made them/tested them, and they aren’t going to share that information with you. So the best bet is somewhere other than the bathroom, or otherwise according to the package.
Also, if your drug product comes with a package/cylinder of dessicant inside the bottle, please leave it there. It was approved to be packaged that way. And just because something is in a blister pack does not mean it is impervious to water/humidity - they will not prevent moisture from getting through.
While I’m at it, to answer HeyHomie’s question for the pharmaceutical lab (I don’t know what a pharmacist would do), a good company will have protocols in place that dictates that only men can handle/test the product, and depending on the potency of the drug, even sometimes have all-male packaging lines as well. My first company also had blood tests every 3-6 months to make sure employees handling potent actives weren’t being affected by them (we saw the results, these weren’t tests for illegal drugs!) Many companies, however, will simply rely on gloves/other PPE and hope for the best, which is silly, and always kind of pissed me off. Most of the drugs labelled that way are hormones or hormone mimics, and they can really screw up a woman’s body (look at how little drug there actually is in your standard birth control pill!) The reason it is safe for men is that you guys are so swamped in testosterone, that a little bit of other hormones won’t have any effect - it gets drowned out.
The warnings about pregnant women are largely because no studies have been done on the drug’s effect on children/fetuses (whether it even reaches the fetus, whether it is expressed in breast milk, etc), so the company takes the better safe than sorry approach. Every company I’ve worked for had a policy of removing pregnant women from the lab and assigning them to duties in which they would not contact chemicals for the duration of her pregnancy; no one I know has ever disagreed with that policy, but I’m sure it’s happened.
Ok, I looked this one up for you today at the pharmacy, the package insert actually lists retrograde ejaculation as an adverse effect. It lists that in the clinical trials, 8.4% of people reported “Abnormal Ejaculation” which it then defines as, and I quote, “Abnormal ejaculation includes ejaculation failure, ejaculation disorder, retrograde ejaculation and ejaculation decrease.”
Well, so far in my first complete calender year of classes, or 4 quarters, I think we have have had 3 lectures. Including one where a DEA rep came to talk to us. This is not including such things as how DEA numbers are assigned, and how to tell if they are real.
Well, mnemosyne has already explained the pharmaceutic answer to this, which is exactly what I learned. So, it is possible, but not really likely. Unless you have a really bad storage environment you have nothing to worry about.
Well, I’m male, so I haven’t really experienced the problem myself. I know most of the female pharmacists and techs I’ve worked with never really bothered with protection while counting out the pills. I worked once with a tech who was actually pregnant and she didn’t touch the stuff, letting someone else count it. However, realize that when we count the pills, we put them on a counting tray, and use a spatula to count with, so we don’t actually touch the pills during the process.
Oh, and mnemosyne I don’t mind you answering questions at all. After all, we are all here for the same reason… Fighting Ignorance.
Speaking of ignorance, what can I take or attempt to get prescribed for me if I have a raging case of ignorance? Like, I haven’t had a flare-up in a while and the discomfort isn’t all that frequent anymore, but still, I’d like a little somethin’ to help keep it under more control than I currently have it.
Any tips?
Only thing I can recommend you is to get a paid subscription to the SDMB, make sure you use it to visit GQ QID and PRN for ignorance.
Okay, thanks anyways. Wasn’t for me anyways, was for a friend.
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What actually happens if a person who is taking xanax drinks grapefruit juice? And why specifically that one citrus? Is it really OK to drink orange juice with it?
For the unititiated, when my Grandmother was taking Xanax there were warnings all over the packaging that one absolutely should not drink grapefruit juice while on it. Despite at least five minutes of web searching, I was unable to find out why this would be a problem.
Curiosity killed the Celt!