Just renew the prescription, you good for nothing allergist!

The BBQ Pit
1

Over the last few years, I’ve managed to develop an allergy to aspirin… The kind of allergy that causes throat-swelling, wonder if I’m going to live past the next three minutes allergy… Or so I’ve been told by my GP…

I really don’t want to take aspirin again to find out if I’ll actually go into anaphylactic shock, so I’ll just have to take his word for it…

Last year I was sent to an allergist to look into the allergy… I called up and made an appointment, and was told I was not to take any allergy medications for TWO weeks before my appointment… I explained to the allergist’s staff that I wasn’t going in for normal allergy testing, but wanted to find out what to do about aspirin allergy… “Doesn’t matter… No medications”, I was told…

So, I gave up my Allegra for two weeks and managed to drag myself to the appointment… Life was almost tolerable, but I figured it would be worth it…

I get to the appointment, and after talking with the allergist, within 2 minutes am told there IS no test for aspirin allergy and am handed a prescription for an Epipen… If I ever have an allergic reaction due to aspirin, I’m supposed to jab myself in the leg… Hopefully I’ll never need to find out…

I picked up my prescription, and for the past year have been dragging around two huge needles just in case…

Fast forward to this week… I suddenly realize that the Epipens I was given have now expired, and I need a new refill… I look at the box, and see that it says “Dr’s authorization needed”… I call my local drugstore and explain they will have to call the allergist…

A few hours later, the drug store calls and tells me the Doctor has DENIED the prescription… He told them I need to come in for another appointment…

FUCKING moneygrubbing allergist! I need to come in again so that you can look at me for 30 seconds and scribble out another prescription without doing any tests?

I’m not trying to get Oxycontin… I’m not selling my epipens on the black market to pay for my “habit”…

Do you want to see me to find out how the first needles worked out? They DIDN’T, asshole… That’s the whole point… I hope I never need to use one…

Called my GP’s office about getting the prescription through them… Like I’m gonna give this allergist any more money…

Scumbag…

2

your family doc should be fully capable and willing of renewing that medication, under most circumstances.

I’ve written a few hundred epipen prescriptions in my career, and I’m no allergist.

I also once had a patient ask me to show her how her epipen worked. I took it from her, deactivated it, told her I would demonstrate it without triggering the device. I pushed it into my thigh, and wham, the damn thing injected me with epi!

She laughed at me! :smack:

3

:: Guffawing ::

So… how’d it feel, Doc?

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

4

What a rush!

5

Is it really? Not that I’m going to start slaming epi-pens for the hell of it now, but I am genuinely curious to know what it’s like.

6

I had an epi shot when I reacted to some antibiotics, and it was a ‘rush’, but it sucked ass.

I felt like I was going really fast, my heart was pounding, I was breathing really quick, and everything around me seemed like slow motion.

If that’s what doing speed is like, fuck speed.

7

It’s a rush, but not a pleasant one. Heart racing, head pounding, blood roaring in my ears, hands shaking. NOT something I want to repeat for pleasure, only for dire medical necessity. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.

8

Ooooh, I hate it when doctors want you to make unnecessary appointments to try to line their own pockets.

During a severe bout of depression a few years back, I went to a GP and after an exam and consultation, got a prescription for Prozac. With only one refill. After repeated phone calls (and running out of my meds for over a week), which were never returned, requesting a refill, I was finally informed that I needed to make a new appointment. At the time, I had no health insurance, and my mother was unemployed, I had paid for the first appointment with a credit card, and was paying for the meds with same. I was doing fine with the medication, and there was no reason I needed to make a new appointment. I explained that I was uninsured, couldn’t afford the appointment, etc (a doctor’s appointment here in Vegas is going to cost a minimum of $100, and that’s just for a routine check-up). So, every two months, I was putting $150 on my credit card, plus another $80/mo for generic Prozac, when I was just barely making enough money to keep me and my mother fed, clothed and sheltered.

After about eight months, I realized three things

1)my meds weren’t working anymore
2) I couldn’t afford to be racking up the doctor’s fees and my medication on my credit card anymore
3) Hi, Opal!

So, I just went off Prozac. Quit taking it, risked withdrawal symptoms (which, happily, I didn’t have, got lucky there), and just suffered with the depression for, well, I still am.

If I hadn’t had to schedule an appointment every two months, I probably could have afforded just the meds alone, but that extra $150 bimonthly at my income level put me over the top of what I could keep up with payment-wise. I would have been able to afford to schedule a new appointment at that time, when I could have told my doctor, “Hey, chick, the meds have quit working, can we try something else or maybe adjust the dosage?”

Instead, I have had to live through three years of untreated depression, along with risking the potential dangers of going off psych meds cold turkey. Most of the time, it’s general low-grade unhappiness, but when Aunt Flo sends in her advance team of vicious attack hormones (thank God for birth control, which has taken much of the edge off of this) I get downright suicidal.

Because of a greedy clinic that demanded a patient with a rapidly dereasing income and no health insurance make an unnecessary appointment every two months.

9

Isn’t the epipen basically a civvie model of the various military thigh injectors for nerve toxin antidotes? If so, you have my sincere condolances - those suckers are heavily sprung. Not just the drug effects, but a monster bruise, too.

10

The anti-nerve injectors come in pairs. The first one is atropine. Since atropine itself will kill you, the second one is the antidote. If an epipen is a single unit, it’s likely not atropine.

I’ve never had to inject myself and hopefully never will.

11

I thought that in the presence of the appropriate nerve toxins the atropine would no longer be fatal - though I knew that atropine is toxic by itself.

And, no, I don’t think anyone wants to have to self-inject any of those things. Doesn’t change that I think that the epipen, if it is an adaptation of the chemwarfare injectors, took an awful long time to make it to civilian use. (And if that IS what happened, it’s another idea like Velcro, Post-it notes, or even CD’s where some smart cookie noticed implications or commercial applications of something everyone already knew about and I can clobber myself for not thinking of it, myself. :smiley: )

12

:wink:

(Actually, I looked up Atropine on the web and, unless I’m missing something–and having no medical training I may very well be–atropine isn’t fatal, even in relatively high doses.)

13

Metacom, those instructions may be a bit humorous, but when I was in the Navy at the time of GW part one, the training we got about atropine injectors was: If you’re being sent to an area where chemical weapons may be used, you will be issued an atropine injector. Do not use the injector until, and unless, you are ordered to do so.

There may have been different ones being used for ground pounders - but in the Navy it would have been pretty hard for us to get out of range of the chemical weapons detection unit, so the decision about exposure wasn’t going be individual, but based on the whole unit. :slight_smile:

14

Metacom, one more thing - IANAD, but, IIRC, atropine has a major medical use for eyedrops. And there overdosages aren’t going to be fatal. But that’s very different from taking internally.

15

Let that be a lesson to you. Always treate the epi pen as if it were loaded, and never point the epi pen at anything unless you intend to inject it.

16

One of the nastiest-ass drugs I’ve ever been on was Donnatal - Atropine, Scopolamine, and Pentobarb in a 40 proof alcohol solution :eek: . It was prescribed for some bowel/gall problems I was having at the time, but God DAMN! it threw me for a loop. Nothing knocks you out faster, and I don’t remember if it actually had any effect on my problem.

Unfortunately, at the time I also had a history of depression with the occasional suicide attempt. A drug of this nature should NEVER be in the hands of someone with that kind of history unless s/he/it is clean from any kind of ideation like that (my after-the-fact opinion). Which, at the time, I wasn’t. Needless to say, when the cops showed up after being called, I was only too happy to dump the shit in the toilet, and I hope never to see anything like it again.

17

No, they’re not atropine. Epipens are just epinephrine, which is why you get the rush Qadgop describes.

And Qadgop, if it makes you feel any better, I was saw a vet drop a syringe full of thiopentothal and have it land needle-down in his thigh. And it was a significantly bigger needle than they usually have on epipens. Luckily not very much of it injected, but we had to postpone surgery for a bit. Someone else I know once accidentally sprayed herself in the mouth with FatalPlus (you don’t want to know). She said her face was numb for almost twelve hours.

18

The same rules apply to an erection.

19

IANAD but I was under the impression that this was a malpractice issue. In other words if your doc re-ups your RX without seeing you once or twice a year and something goes wrong - you can sue the pants off of them. If thats true then its more of a protective reason than say a “pocket lining” one. (Perhaps Qadgop can verify this).

I have to say I am very lucky as I have no health insurance but have a very understanding and helpful allergist. She cuts me breaks on billing whenever she can and gives me samples of the more expensive drugs I need whenever possible. She is truly a gift from above. . . I hope you can find someone like her where you are!

20

Depends on the drug and the diagnosis. Certainly continually prescribing controlled substances, or routine medications with the potential for side effect which need regular monitoring in the form exam or blood work, without actually seeing the patient regularly, can get a doc into trouble.

Prescribing episodic meds which are of a “rescue” nature such as epinephrine gives the prescriber a bit more slack.

However, I would not fault a doc who insisted on a visit before refilling a prescription over a year old.