Category Archives: Hate Mail

Hate Mail

Oh Boy!

12 Comments

Ah, you all know that I love a good hate-mail. 🙂

you’re all a bunch of ingrates. like WE’RE supposed to read your minds? ya’ll make a TON of money and have the nerve to have a power trip about it at the same time.

We don’t expect you to read our minds. We assume that you have enough common sense to realize the information that we need right off the bat so we dont spend an hour wasting our time to fill your Rx. I mean who goes anywhere without their insurance card? Do you drive without you drivers license? I realize that people forget stuff at home, but then demand that /I/ call /your/ insurance to get your ID number that /you/ left at home 5 mins away. No, thats not a power trip, thats respect for someone who is providing you a service. Next time you’re at the store and forget your credit card to pay for your food, whine at them because they wont call your credit card company to get your CC#.
I don’t see what making a ‘TON of money’ has anything to do with this. Yes, we get paid normally high wages compared to ditch diggers and waitresses, but they aren’t really responsible for your life are they? They didn’t to go college for over 5 years nor are saving your life when two doctors refuse to talk and prescribe the same thing.
I get high wages for my schooling and my knowledge of pharmacy. I don’t get paid high wages to be your bitch and errand boy because you’re too lazy to either call in Rx numbers or run home for your insurance card.

I’m sure this will either not get posted or it will and the indigent flames will then come…

I would of just glossed over this and blindly approved the comment. However I figured you shouldn’t get off that easy.

Doctors and Stuff, Hate Mail

Angry Doctor II

14 Comments

So a few months back I got into a bit of a Pharmacist vs Doctor war (I think it was involving drugbuyers.com, narcotics, and the bit). I wrote a very heated response to a hate-mail that I got, and never published it hoping that the whole situation would just die (which it did). Yanno, taking the high road, etc.
Since I just got back from vacation, the angry-pumps arent quite primed for a new entry, so you get one that I wrote when that stuff was going on (but I didnt publish it).
Oh, as before, I am /not/ anti-doctor (a bunch of my friends are very nice doctors). However what I say below is how I feel on most issues when doctors get uppity. Lets not start another war here. Its sad that I have to put a disclaimer as to not to piss off a bunch of my MD readers.. bleh!
Onward!

There are many differences between pharmacists and physicians: your post
and your comments highlight the big ones.
Physicians work as hard as they can to not judge our patients based on
race, income, gender, sexual orientation or sexual preferences. We learn
NOT to make rash assumptions. We know that the superficial appearance
doesn’t always tell the whole story.

We dont initally judge either. However, since we spend more than 5 mins with these patients more often than once or twice a month, we have a better understanding as to who they are. Regardless on how they look when they walk in the door, I treat them with the same respect and kindness I do everyone else who walks in. However after the 5th phone call in 2 days asking if their Vicodin is due yet, I tend to get a bit irritated and annoyed. You have a front-end staff to deal with that crap, I dont. They can just walk in and start yelling anytime they want. I dont have the luxury of setting appointments.

You’ve now gone and made pharmacists look like every other whiny, catty,
self-rightous, ignorant retail clerk. Congratulations. The more that the
general public reads work like this, the faster you’ll lose the title of
“Most Trusted Profession”. I’d never set foot in your pharmacy knowing
that you’re review prescription histories and make fun of patients this
way.

Im sorry for reviewing patient histories, I thought that was part of my job. I’m sure the front-end girls in YOUR office have their share of chuckles and eye-rolls when they find out that patient-X is coming in at 2:30 to get his Rx’s refilled. Im sure you yourself have written an Rx or approved an early refill just to get a troublesome patient out of your hair. See, we dont have that luxury. We cant just fill vicodin 4 weeks early just to get them out of the store, its unethical and grounds for having men in suits come and look at our records. We dont have the luxury of setting appointments, or closing for lunch for 2 hours, or taking off at 5pm on friday. We dont have an officestaff to say that you are busy, or with a patient so you dont have to deal with these folk. We take the heat from your patients so you dont have to. We are the last line of defense in preventing truckloads of vicodin and soma and other crap from hitting the streets. I have no problem telling a patient that his pain pills are due on this date. What does the doctor say when the patient bitches to him/her? “Well, I wrote for them, its up to the pharmacist if he wants to fill them”. Not “You’re getting them too early, NO”. So he/she absolved himself of any blame. We’re the bad guy, you’re the good guy. Its hard to be nice when you’re getting lied to by the patients, and used as the scapegoat by the doctor.
So if I look like a “whiny, catty, self-rightous, ignorant retail clerk.” Then you really need to walk out of your little office, with your cushy chair and big computer monitor and start spending more than 5 min with the patients that I see and talk to all month long.
So yes, we still we be the “most trusted profession”, because the people who I poke fun at will just choose another pharmacy in a month. However that 80 year old patient of yours (a patient of mine of over 25 years by the way) who is seeing 4 other specialists (and you all cant be bothered to talk to each other to formulate a drug game-plan) is coming in holding Rx’s for 3 different ACE-I, a few beta-blockers, some warfarin + amioderone, a smile on her face and a story to tell us about what happened at church last week. You paint that picture on why we are trusted and why your patient isnt dead.

Shame on you.

No, shame on you for making a blanket assumption about pharmacists based upon a blog who’s humor obviously eludes you. When is the last time you found out what pharmacy your patients were mostly going to, and paid them a visit to say hi and thanks for all they do? Try it sometime, oh wait, you’re too busy going to free CE dinners by drug reps to learn what new drugs are out rather than reading non-paid-advertisements like us pharmacists do. God knows you arent approving refill requests that have been sitting on your desk for the past month (while I advance the patient some to keep them out of the hospital).

Hate Mail

Yes! Hate Mail!

21 Comments

Wrong on many counts.
1. Family docs are well aware of the costs of the meds. We know which ones
are covered by the government for seniors, which ones require a limited use
code for coverage and which ones don’t have a generic equivalent. The
pharmacists don’t do that for us. If we don’t get it right we get a fax
from the pharmacy refusing the script.

Are you sure? Why do I see at least three times a day a doctor prescribing Levaquin to a known private pay patient. You know, the types that get pissed off because now they have to wait to get it changed because a 10 day run costs over 100 bucks. Yet when I ask “did you tell the doctor you didnt have Rx insurance” the response is “I sure did, he said it costs ‘about 30 dollars or so'”.
How about the rare times doctors themselves actually call in Rx’s, and say “oh shit” when I say “are you sure you want to prescribe that? Mrs Jones has no Rx coverage, and thats over 200 dollars”.
I call bullshit on your statement. You may know the cost of the medications, but ‘family doctors’ have little to know clue as to how much Crestor or Levaquin or Lipitor costs. Unless I somehow work in town full of retarded doctors (which I seriously doubt).

2. Docs get nothing from drug reps for prescribing their products. They’re
not allowed to leave anything more than free samples, so no one is getting
lap dances out here.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. You must live in a state that has those ‘free good’ laws out there. We have a clinic next door, and they look like santa waltzing in with bags and bags of free shit. They have paperweights, coupons, notepads, pens, etc, etc, etc. They come with their dinners and golf trips and vacations and on and on and on.

3. Some newer drugs have evidence behind them (meaning large-scale RCT’s)
proving that they work better. And some patients have had side effects or
poor response to the older ones. So not every doc prescribing the new med
over the old one is doing so with no therapeutic intent.

Did you read the studies? Or just listening to the reps who push them. The devil is in the details, and I bet if you actually sat down and read that clinical study (rather than just listening to a talking head), you’d actually realize that the glamor and hype whats news is just a rehash of something old and generic and cheap. Remember the first rule of Journal reading: See who paid for the study.

Rant away, angry one. But maybe you’ll want to step out behind the counter
every now and then and get back in touch with reality.

Dont have enough time too. Im too busy listening to your patients complain about their cost of their medications, answering questions about their health because ‘the doctor was too busy to answer this for me’, and giving explanations/excuses on why your office hasn’t faxed back my refill request/med change in 2 days.
Oh, you’re a Canadian ER Doctor (from what it looks like on your blog, i spent 2 min’s looking at it, so I might of missed something huge). Lets see how this changes things:

  • Different laws in Canada with regard to drug reps
  • Different pricing scheme (regulated by the government, not free market) so of course you know the prices of everything.
  • You’re an ER doctor. I hope you have a private practice somewhere.
    I’m at a loss to understand why you are bitching about an American Pharmacist ranting about an American Senior Drug Program and American Doctors.

    • Hate Mail

    Told ya I’d get hate mail

    25 Comments

    There seems to be a common theme among my hate mail:

    well. You’ve hit my hot button.
    There are people who are allergic to generic drugs Not the active
    ingredient but the binders dye, glycerin, etc.
    So are you going to stop counting pills and make up generics yourself?

    Hate to break it to you, but 75-90% of the oral tablets are made up of the same binders. The only difference might be the dye, but how many generic lisinoprils are there? How many generic metformins are there? How many generic drug companies are there that all make the same product (Watson, Teva, QT, Endo, Ranbaxy, Roxane, Upsher, etc). If someone has a true allergy to a “binder”, then most likely they are going to have a problem with the trade name medication. Getting an “upset stomach with everything except brand name” sounds pretty psychosomatic to me.

    did you ever stop to think about the patients who have trouble with certain
    generics? Please don’t give that crap about how all generics are the same
    as brand name. We in the medical community know that some generics don’t
    work as well. It’s a good thing you aren’t running the world because if
    you were someone would have already shot you.

    Problems such as with the binders? The same binders that all other tablet manufacturers use? Plain (non XR/ER) tablet making really isnt rocket science. They all pretty much are done the same way for the lowest dollar. Clinically, how would you determine if a generic isn’t working as well as a brand name? Maybe the patient skipped days (you dont know that, you dont have their refill records). Maybe the patient doesn’t take his/her medication just so they can get you to write a DAW-1 on their next Rx. With the exception of drugs with a narrow therapeutic index, how can you really tell that Lisinopril isnt doing its job (or the patient just wants trade name and refuses to take the generic). If you find a generic that doesnt agree with the patient for some reason, switch to another one by another company. When it comes right down to it, and the cards are laid out on the table, the reasons why generics “dont work” is because “the doctor said so” (fueled by drug rep kickbacks) or purely psychosomatic reasons. Ive seen it with every single brand -> generic switch to date.
    Amazing how generics magically work when insurance companies stop paying for the brand name and the patient is slapped with a $300 bill for the trade name medication they so eagerly bitch for.

    Hate Mail

    Drugbuyers.com, final thoughts…

    30 Comments

    This is going to be the last post about drugbuyers.com. I’m just going to point out a few points, paste a few hate mails, and leave it at that. I dont think drugbuyers.com administrators nor I want to deal with the aftermath of a full on flame war.
    Here is where they say how much they love me
    Points to make:

  • The Angry Pharmacist and the DrugNazi/Monkey are two different people. Two sites, etc. Please dont get us confused, its probably insulting to the both of us.. 🙂
  • I am a licensed pharmacist in good standing actively working in my state which I reside. I’m not a disgruntled tech, a fired pharmacist, or any sort of shit like that. I have no ambition to go to medical school nor have I ever applied. Why would I want to become a doctor?
  • I’m not short and fat. Neapolitan is an ice cream flavor, not a personality
  • Im a very nice and compassionate person in the store. If you are retarded (or just ‘dont get it’), being nice and friendly on here does not equal www.theANGRYpharmacist.com. I tell it how it is, nice or not.
  • Topics such as these dont help your argument.
  • Having pricing for Soma, Tramadol, and Fiorcet (they all arent controlled, but are commonly used for abuse and not for severe chronic pain) on the top of the forum board dont help your argument either. Chronic pain people know that (with the exception of soma) those (especially fiorcet) arent used to treat chronic pain. I’ve seen Norco for breakthrough with a timed release C2, but never ultram or fiorcet.
  • If you think that just throwing opoids at chronic pain is ‘pain management’, then you have a lot to learn. Pain management involves including a bunch of different agents including Neurontin (or a TCA,SSI, Cymbalta, etc or both) for neuropathy in back/diabetes patients, Ibuprofen/NSAID/Cox-2/prednisone/Decadron/etc for inflammation, etc. Timed released agents for baseline pain vs short acting agents for breakthrough pain, analgesic equivalent conversions (in mg of morphine units) of all the oral/IM/IV agents, figuring out how much timed release to give based upon your breakthrough frequency rate, etc are all a part of ‘pain management’. All of this has to be tailored by a doctor who needs to SEE you, not just see your text. They also need to be looked at by a REAL pharmacist who talks to you, not just accepts your credit card and fedex’s your shipment.
  • I worked in pain mangement for hospice. I was the one who would scream at gunshy doctors to prescribe C2’s so these poor people could die in peace and pain-free. So dont think I dont know what i’m talking about when talking about pain control. The doctors would say “those are addictive!” i would say “so what?”. Ever give Ritalin to an elderly so you could increase the morphine dose to control pain without making them sleep all day? I have. Ever been personally thanked by the family of the patient because their loved one died without pain? I have. Ever have patients shake your hand and thank you because for once they slept a full night pain-free? I have. Dont talk to me about not knowing about chronic pain or pain mangement.
  • Think about what you are doing and preaching. Out there a dumbass politician with no medical knowledge is looking at online doctors/pharmacies (ie: drugbuyers.com and others) and thinking “diversion, save the children, reelection”. You have forum topics about drug tests, online pharmacies, online doctors, harassing the UPS man for your ‘shipment’, etc. Doesnt look good. Now think of what this politician is going to do? Thats right, create more stupid ass laws to stop this sort of stuff. This means locking down controlled drugs even more which makes my job (and a doctors) even harder. So the people who need these medications to survive have to deal with the aftermath due to the people who take these drugs for less-than-ethical purposes. Thats a pretty shitty deal if you ask me.
  • Making threats to take my webpage down isnt very smart. Because if the site goes down due to attack, my hosting provider and his ISP are going to want to know who did it. I point them to drugbuyers.com forum thread above and the subpoenas start flying. I dont think you or drugbuyers.com want that kind of attention from lawyers and law enforcement (even though what drugbuyers.com is doing isnt illegal in the least, its a hassle for everyone involved). Huge red-flag for everyone associated with drugbuyers.com over a topic that you dont happen to agree with.
  • Online pharmacies may be convenient, but online doctors with online pharmacies are shady at very best. It may be legal to the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. International importing of controlled medication is just asking for trouble. Doctors are supposed to make an educated decision based upon your symptoms, and doing it over email or a computer is just plain unethical. If you’re in chronic pain you need to be followed by a “real” doctor in person, not killing your liver with vicodin from some online quack and some fly-by-night pharmacy. You know as much about the doctor as he knows about you, thats pretty damn scary when you trust your health and well being to someone who is just text on a computer monitor.
  • I have nothing against the people who run drugbuyers.com. They do what they want to do, provide a place for people to discuss. If thats what floats their boat, thats great, but what goes on there could possibly have an impact on my patients and my profession, and thats where I get upset. My hats are off however to their administrative staff for putting the kebosh on the threads about the DrugNazi and myself.
  • There are people on DB who are legit, however when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. All these strict narcotic laws weren’t passed because of the actions of legit patients.
    Enough Jerry Springer-like “Final Thoughts”. On with the hate mail!!!

    Your a fucking dick…get your facts str8 or shut up bitch! You sure your
    not a “junkie”? you seem to know soo much about DB.com and the people
    there. Just to get your facts str8 (and you should know this) you cannot
    get a schedule 2 med from an online or edoctor

    I can spell ‘straight’, so no, I am not a junkie. Yes, you cannot get C2 narcotics online. However if you had enough brainpower to read the main page of drugbuyers.com, it does in fact say:
    Where are the best sources for hydrocodone, oxycodone, and other strong pain meds?
    Im sure the answer to this question would be “A Pharmacy”, but im sure it goes a little deeper than that.

    I sure hope that you never cir cum to a debilitating disease.
    You seem to be quick to give out your advice but, in reality you have no
    idea. Just remember what goes around comes around and Karma (Whether you
    believe in it or not) is a bitch.
    In other words, if you keep up your shitty and piss poor attitude toward
    your fellow man, Then I have no doubt you will end up disabled and alone.
    Seems a fitting end to someone of your stature

    Cir cum? Woah! I have enough positive karma to forgive Saddam, Hitler, and the DrugNazi. I bail people out of jams day in and day out. I advance people medication at no cost to them to keep them out of the hospital because their doctor took a week to okay the refill request. People love me at work, and I use this site to blow off steam at my fellow man. I keep my fellow man alive because he is too ignorant to call in for a refill a few days early vs a day after he’s out when the bottle states 0 refills remaining.

    Oh, and since I fully suspect you don�t have the guts to post any negative feedback on your site, I�ve taken the liberty of posting your little screed on alt.support.chronic-pain newsgroup along with my response.

    Thats great. Most of those patients probably go to a legit doctor, and get pain medications from reputable sources. Im sure a good majority of them would agree with what im saying, since this online doctor/pharmacy shit just supports the passing of stricter laws that make it harder for them to get the pain medication that they need. So I hate to say it, but your little plan to get angry mobs of chronic pain people after me might backfire.

    “…who else buys their fucking pain medications from an “online” doctor and an “online” pharmacy”
    How about chronic pain patients who can’t get adequate pain relief because their doctors are either chickenshits or selfish pricks. Many, if not most of the people who frequent drugbuyers.com suffer from chronic pain. If you read some of the discussions you’d know that.
    The American Pain Foundation estimates that 50 million U.S. citizens suffer from significant pain daily, but only about a quarter of them are getting adequate treatment.
    That’s because the DEA campaign against prescription drug diversion has stigmatized patients in need of pain medication. DEA intimidation tactics against doctors have created a climate of fear, with the predictable result that many doctors now won’t prescribe opiates at all or are only willing to prescribe amounts that are totally inadequate. The DEA is killing chronic pain patients by intimidating their doctors. Many more people die from not having the prescription pain medications they need, than die from the drug abuse the government is trying to prevent.
    One of the major causes of those deaths is the overuse of OTC NSAIDS like acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) by people who are desperate for pain relief. The Food and Drug Administration estimates that 200,000 cases of gastric bleeding occur each year, resulting in nearly 20,000 deaths.
    Read more at deasucks.com

    If you are in true chronic pain, and your doctor wont prescribe you anything stronger than Vicodin ES, then you need to find a doctor that knows something about medicine. Plain and simple. Skirting a gray-area of the law with an online doctor and online pharmacy is not only going to force more laws to be passed to limit narcotics (via your beloved DEA), but in the end result going to harm more people who are in chronic pain. So by going to these online joints you’re shitting in your own bed.
    But what do I know? I only spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week calculating how long a 30 day supply of soma (90 divided by 3 is a long lost art) will last to the same person every day (because they dont remember they called) , and hearing excuse after excuse after excuse on why they need their pain pills early (none of which are ‘they arent helping’ and they never seem to lose their BP/DM meds). Oh, and its never for the C2 narcotics either, because they cant be troubled to go into the doctors office for a new handwritten Rx. Yes, these doctors do write for C2’s. Yes, these same doctors do have chronic pain patients who are on C2’s, have a good quality of life, and who are never early on their medications. Yes, there are pain management clinics and doctors who actually listen what I have to say because they know that I talk with the patient a whole lot more than they do.
    So thats the end of it (I hope). I hope I made my point clear.

    • Hate Mail

    Uh oh, I made a doctor angry!

    16 Comments

    Jeezus H Christ ive been getting a lot of hate mail lately. Heres the latest from a real life doctor!
    ***NOTE***
    I am friends with a ton of doctors. Dont take this as me bashing all doctors. Seriously, there are tons of shitty pharmacists as well as shitty doctors out there. However when a doctor writes what he/she said below (for no reason really, I havent said anything about doctors in a while) you know I cant keep my mouth shut.. 🙂 Plus im really sick and tired of hearing that we’re “wanna be doctors” (which we arent)

    You pharmacists are real jerks arent ya? First off….alot of people that
    are on medicaid are not all on welfare. Most of those people are the ones
    who have pre-existing conditions that can not get private insurance or
    insurance through a job!

    Uh, medicaid = state assistance = welfare. They may have a huge Share of Cost on their Medicaid, but its still state assistance. Plus I hope you realize that im not against /everyone/ who is on the state tit. I see plenty of people who this really does help, my response mostly was about women who want to get pregnant when they cant afford to take care of themselves.

    For example…I have a patient who is type 1
    diabetic who uses a insulin pump. I script my patient humalog…my patient
    calls and tells me the pharmacy is wanting 90.00 per vial for her insulin
    and it was going to cost her over 450.00 for her 5 vials to last her a
    month. I tell her to contact her local medicaid office and see if they will
    give her insurance. They did…that same day! This woman works, goes to
    school and has children but with her other medical conditions and other
    scripts I write for her there is no way in the world she would be able to
    take care of her family if she is not taking good care of her diabetes.

    Bad example Doc. Type-1 diabetes is not a pre-existing condition that insurance companies will reject one on. Lets elaborate a bit further.

  • I realize that this example is someone who is using the system for what its intended for.
  • You dont realize (because you never leave the comfort of your little protected office) that there are 25 year olds on the system who dont work, who sit around pop out kids, and will never do anything with their lives. Thats who I have a beef with.
  • What does this hate mail have to do with anything ive written? It was in response to a bitch that women on welfare should not have children. I think thats a pretty good common sense idea.
  • Where did this patient get the insulin pump for the Humalog? They don’t just grow on trees. How did she afford this? Why would a person get setup with a specialized piece of equipment (insulin pumps are indeed specialized) when they cannot afford the maintenance cost? Looks like bad foresight on someones part. Humulin R, N, 70/30 have been the mainstay for years and years, so why go with the latest and greatest. Oh, a drug rep told you.
  • Humalog does in fact cost $90. Not the pharmacies fault. Im sure you don’t work for free, so why do you expect us and the drug manufacturers to do the same?
  • I don’t see you putting out the $90 for this patients insulin. Why don’t you sweet talk the rep into getting some samples to give to your patient.

    So for you ignorant pharmacists who “wanted” or “wished” to be doctors and
    couldnt be because you couldnt pass the tests, you need to shut the fuck up
    about people who are on medicaid! Alot of people that are on medicaid need
    to be on it in order to LIVE! You pharmacists think you are gods gift to
    this earth all because you stand behind a counter and “play” doctor.

    Great, way to go and posting this little vent where thousands of pharmacists are going to read. I hope you have a lot of space in your inbox. Lets get the primer going shall we?

  • We bail your ass out when there are 3 specialists all writing for the same therapeutic class because you cant get off your high horse to talk with each other.
  • We talk to the patients for free because you cannot due to your patient load
  • We take the phone calls when your patient has a problem because you’re too ‘busy’ to talk with them
  • We get that $300 medication (that the drug rep told you was the magical cure-all) changed to something that the patient can actually afford (that has worked for the past 20 years, but for some reason doesnt work as well because its generic).
  • We don’t listen to drug reps who love to blow smoke up your ass, and you love every minute of it for the free schwag and the glimpse of fake boobs and a short skirt.
  • We don’t cave in because some crackhead needs his vicodin early for the 10th month in a row for some bullshit excuse even though you caved in and authorized the refill
  • We have to deal with the fallout of you not taking a patients insurance, and suggesting what doctor they go to for patient care.
  • We are your backbone and scapegoat. You blame us for everything so you don’t take the heat. How many times have you said “oh, talk to the pharmacist about that” because your little PDR didnt have information on drugs over 10 years old.
  • We keep your patients out of the hospital because you cant be troubled to approve that refill request until 10 days have passed and your patient is long out of medication.
  • You use the PDR for your drug information. Enough said. Any pharmacist will tell you that is the most horrible and shitty drug information book on the planet. Facts and Comparisons and LexiComp win hands down. Im sorry if the CYP450 system confuses you.
    Now you may be saying “I’m not like that”. You can paint us pharmacists with a broad brush, so I can paint you doctors with an equally broad brush.
    So I have a fair right to bitch about Medicaid, because unlike you, I actually spend more than 5 mins hearing my patients bitch about early narcotic refills, and why they have to pay $3 on a $200 rx (because some drug rep told them that the new extended release cipro for $5/pill is better than the generic at $0.06/pill). They vent to me, not you. The come to me, not you.
    99% of pharmacists can go on to medical school and become doctors (AKA: The Dark Side). But why don’t we? Because we fill a niche just like you and everyone else does in the healthcare industry. Why don’t you go to pharmacy school and become a pharmacist. Oh, right, pharmacology, the hardest class in medical school to pass (says 3 of my friends who are in fact in medical school right now).
    So yes Dr, we are Gods gift to earth. You’re just bent out of shape that most patients will take our advice because you are too busy to speak with them.

    • Hate Mail

    Here we go again

    6 Comments

    Angry noob,
    Disability often begins on welfare then migrates to the longer term SSD. I know you dont know this since you have yet to walk yourself through it.

    I never plan to walk through it. Plus, ask any pharmacist and you’ll find out that there are a shitpot more 25 year olds on SSD + Welfare than welfare alone.

    Glad to see you looked up endo. Most doctors do know what it is, did you read they dont somewhere? The problem is getting diagnosed (surgery). As you can imagine, a woman going in with the symptoms of “pelvic pain” doesnt tend to raise a whole lot of red flags. Doctors often do nothing until one is totally disabled or infertile. But it is not because they dont know.

    You saying that right there tells me that most doctors dont know what it is. If pelvic pain so bad that it makes one disabled, it tends to raise a red flag for something not normal. Chronic pelvic pain, or disabling pelvic pain isn’t normal. Obviously you and I have enough common sense to realize it, and we’re not “doctors”.

    I think most any endo patient would agree with what I said to you. Point being, there could actually be a valid reason.
    Lets say this was the case, it would probably be a hail mary as many women know after pregnancy things can get worse. But it all depends on what position a person is in at the time and how much education they have about it. Then it is personal choices which obviously are always up for disagreement.
    Would be a pity if someone were to judge and make fun of someone in such a situation for choosing to try while they can with the hopes of it helping their condition as well as possible plans for hysterectomy afterwards to solve the problem completely allowing one to return to health.

    However if you cannot take care of yourself (being on welfare) because of this. You are in no position to do a ‘hail-mary’ call as to if a child is going to fix you, or make you worse. Sure, having a child could magically fix you, but if it doesnt? Not only is your quality of life going to get worse because of your condition, but you are also bring a child into the world which you arent going to be able to take care off to the best of your ability because of a botched judgement call.
    So you sit there, in disabling pain, watching your child grow up, unable to do anything or act as a ‘normal’ mother. You call this helping? I call it hell. I bet you like to sit there with a garden house in your hand as your house is burning down. Thats what it would feel like.
    Sure you can have a hysterectomy afterwards and be done with the whole thing, but now not only do you have to be able to support yourself (you cant, you’re on welfare remember), but now a child. I’m in the camp that if you choose to reproduce, you best be financially and morally fit to raise that child to the best of your ability so it too can get a job, succeed at life, and not become a burden like most children seem to be now days.
    If us (the taxpayers) are footing the bill for someones life, then I think we should be able to judge all we want. If she doesnt like it? Get off of welfare or dont have a child.

    Let me spell this out for you
    Hysterectomy is any womens best shot at ridding herself of endo, endo often causes infertility,
    Pregnancy to have a much wanted child ->hysterectomy isnt as bad of a plan as
    no hysterectomy/no hormones/hormone failure/surgery failures -> stay disabled for ten years until you cant have children anyways and then opt for the hysterectomy.

    How about:
    If you cant afford to have a child -> Dont have one
    If you are unable to have a child due to a condition -> Dont have one
    If you require outside medication to get pregnant -> Dont have one
    If you have a good chance of not being able to have a child due to a condition, and having a hysterectomy would fix that problem rather than suffer for 10 years because you’re he-hawing thinking about reproducing (which you probably couldnt anyways) -> Have hysterectomy
    Its simple. If you cannot afford something, you dont buy or obtain it. Its like being on welfare and driving escalades.. wait, bad analogy. 🙂

    Im glad this gave your blog some more fodder, surely it will entertain someone.
    Self proclaimed nurse.

    Actually everyone is quite bored with this already.

    Hate Mail

    Yay! Someone who thinks they know something!

    13 Comments

    Look what some smart-ass had to say in response to my entry about Welfare + Clomid = WTF?:

    Ever heard of endometriosis? No course not, youre not a doctor lol.

    Yes, I do know about endometriosis. I would explain it to you, but the words are too big for your tiny brain to comprehend. But to those out there, its a condition where uterine tissue grows in places that is not your uterine (in a really general nutshell)
    Actually, most all doctors with the exception of OB/GYN’s and maybe oncologists wouldn’t know what endometriosis is. So you can ‘lol’ that up your ass.

    If a girl had endo, which can be disabiling, I could see her point in
    trying. 1. sooner the better 2. pregnancy often kicks endos ass. Becoming
    pregnant used to be the main offerings for treatment but women who have
    been horribly disabled by endo changed that.

    What does this have anything to do with my post about people on welfare getting fertility drugs? In fact, this has nothing to do with the people wanting to have children when they cant even support themselves! Did you even read my rant before responding?
    Let me spell it out for you:
    I AM TALKING ABOUT WOMEN ON WELFARE WANTING FERTILITY DRUGS TO GET PREGNANT. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL WOMEN WANTING FERTILITY DRUGS, ONLY THE ONES THAT CANT AFFORD (meaning, they dont have the money) TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES LET ALONE A CHILD. IT IS LIKE SELLING THE CAR FOR GAS MONEY.
    However, since you can spell endometriosis (and are probably a self-proclaimed “Nurse”), i’ll give this another 2 seconds of brainpower. According to the standard treatments, pregnancy isn’t even on that list. In fact, im sure most women would rather be on some sort of oral contraceptive rather than bare/raise a crotch-fruit for 9 months + 18 years. Furthermore, since 30-40% of these women are sterile, why would they be taking Clomid? Not going to do them one damn bit of good except to waste money. Nature has a funny way of saying “maybe you shouldn’t have kids”. I think some women need to read the writing on the wall rather than trying to override nature and get some horrible burden they may not expect.

    Anyways, mighty pharmacists dont know it all, which is why we have
    doctors.

    Uh, dig that hole a bit more sweety. I’m sure that there is a bit more you can do to completely make a total ass out of yourself.

    Drug Trivia and Rants, Hate Mail

    Yay! More Hate Mail!

    8 Comments


    Apparently you have came across neuropathy .. did you ever think that many/most of these people on all these meds & caid was because their pain has developed to such an intensity that they can no longer work and end up on Medicare disability and Medicaid.
    Those people are standing at your front door mostly likely because their doc is under-dosing them and they are either out and/or going into or suffering from withdrawal & pain .. not from ADDICTION but DEPENDENCY..
    The quack doc my mother-in-laws goes to just told her not to call her pain meds refills in UNTIL she takes the LAST PILL.. as we all know .. docs don’t take refills on nights & weekends
    It would be nice .. if everyone was on the same page

    I used to work in pain management dealing with patients who are on a whole boatload of opioids just so their QoL would be somewhat normal (3 x 100 mcg fentanyl patches, or 2-3 grams of Morphine SR/day). I dealt with diabetics with neuropathy to terminal cancer (hospice). I can tell when someones in pain and when someone is blowing smoke up my ass.
    When someone laughs, bullshits, and walks normally from their car to the parking lot (from which I have a complete and plain view of) to be instantly be struck by the pain machine and limp, moan, cry once they hit the pharmacy doors, i doubt they are truly in pain. Anything that comes out of their mouth is bullshit. To make things worse, they limp out of your store to walk normally and bullshit with people in the parking lot just fine. Wonderful.
    When you see people on vicodin, valium, and soma (three times a day on each) filled once a month for the last year (from your store). Then see they are getting it from 3 other stores (via 3 other doctors) per month when you request the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement CURES data you begin to wonder how much pain they are in.
    Plus, what doctor writes for Vicodin or any short acting opioid for truly chronic pain (including neuropathy), thats stupid and silly. Adding Soma and Valium? Why not Baclofen or Flexeril? Oh, because the patient is requesting Soma because it works ‘better’ even though they have never tried any other one. Somethings not adding up here.
    The real chronic pain patients (for those at home) are the ones who are on MS Contin, Oxycontin, Methadone, or Fentanyl Patches. Plus add on some sort of NSAID, Neurontin, and a short acting opioid (usually Norco) for breakthrough pain. If they are tuned perfectly, the breakthrough med would be hardly used at all. They are compliant, will call you (and the doctor) to let you know mid-month that stuff needs to be adjusted, and will not sit and yell at you on Friday night after everyone has gone home that they are out of their pain meds (when they should of known a few days ago they were getting low). They are responsible patients who treat their pain as seriously as anyone with hypertension or diabetes. The doctors who prescribe them are responsible, willing to take input (you talk to the patients a lot more than they do), and just generally a pleasure to work with.
    But like all laws we have, the bad apples just ruin it for the good apples. People want to error on whats not going to jeopardize their license, not whats best for the patient.. So yes, everyone is on the same page. If you want to keep your license, and /not/ become a ‘Soft Touch’ pharmacy thats a big red dot on the DEA’s (and every addict in town’s) list, you have to be aware and not just fill everything assuming everyone is honest and legit. I mean seriously, how many excuses can you take on why the patient needs their narcs early before you stop and think that maybe they are lying to you.