Before my back surgery–before I even had an MRI–the pain specialist gave me the largest prescription I have ever received: 360 pills of Gabapentin/Neurontin, to be taken 3 times a day. These are big pills, so this means left the pharmacy with FOUR of the BIG prescription bottles, and a receipt saying it was $437 worth of meds (amazingly, my copay was just $5). I walked out of Walgreens looking like I’d had a very sucessful night of prescription trick-or-treating.
Now that I’m post-op (and in significantly less pain–as in, 90% of it was gone the moment I left the hospital), I have serious doubts I will ever use at least 180 of those pills. Heck, I’m only halfway through the first bottle, and I doubt I’ll finish it.
Considering the cost, it seems a colossal waste not to use the pills–but I don’t intend to take what I don’t need. What is done with $400 worth of pills, esp. if three of the bottles are untouched?
I doubt this is the case, but can the pills be returned? If not, what do I do with them?
YES!, you can return the pills, but the pharmacist will simply dispose of them, they won’t be re-used. In fact, round here the city would prefer you do that then flush them since it winds up in the lake.
If your looking for a refund for them, that you can’t get. Pharmacies can not take back medication after it has left their sight. However, if you just want to dispose of them, you can bring them to your local pharmacy and they can put it with their damaged pills to be sent back to the distributor for credit. (how much credit? I haven’t the slightest clue)
No no, I don’t want a refund (it was only $5 to me, remember?)–and I know better than to flush them down the toilet or throw them away. But it seems so wasteful for the pills to be “disposed of,” regardless of method or who does it. Ah well.
:smack: I just remembered, there are places that will take them so they won’t be wasted. Now if I only remembered who it was. Battered women shelters maybe?
Take your unused meds to your local Health Rite office. The staff there offers health care and medicines for people who can’t afford to go to a more expensive doctor. I know a lady who has used this service for a long time and she has told me that if there wasn’t any such service she’d be absolutely unable to afford her medicines.
I don’t know if this applies to either of the medicines you’re taking, but I have heard that sometimes veterinary clinics will take unused medicines that are also effective in animals.
I am pretty sure that would be against FDA regulations. Charitable organizations sometimes get drugs donated by the manufacturer or hospitals, but I seriously doubt they are allowed to accept donations of unused drugs from individuals.
?Really? I don’t doubt that there could be a situation like this in a third world country, but I have never heard of anything like this in the US. In fact, if I dispense meds from my practice and the animal dies that same day, medication returned would be disposed of into a sharps container for incineration.
ETA: maybe an animal shelter would take/use/dispense drugs like that.
Ohio just passed legislation that allows unused medications to be donated to non-profit clinics and the like. (It has to be unopened, and I think the donor has to take it to a pharmacy, and they get it to the appropriate outlets.)
Is there anyway to check the unused medicine, pill by pill, for evidence of tampering? Pass the pills under a UV light or something? (Which would probably damage/neutralize some medicines, but still)
What do you mean “unopened” ? All of my prescriptions come with a child guard cap, and there is no way to tell if it has be previously opened. This still sounds unlikely to me.