Why do people think that restricting legal access to drugs will limit use? Has no one learned anything in the last 100 years?

Anybody remember prohibition? I guess not.

How about Nixon’s war on drugs we’ve been fighting for well over 50 years? More deadly drugs at higher availability and lowers prices than ever before.

Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity certainly applies here.

quote:

Originally posted by FiveFiveSixFan:

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
Meh, if it's a prescription from someone with prescription authority they need to go ahead and fill it. I want my Dr. (whoever that may be) to be the one I make medical decisions with, not the corporate pharmacist making that decision arbitrarily after the fact.

How about if the pharmacist filled the prescription but then flagged it for review for any irregularities by the board responsible for licensing the prescriber?

That could be one solution. If the people licensed to write the prescriptions aren't exercising enough discretion writing them that's a problem (and I'm not convinced in this case that it actually IS an issue) that needs to be solved at the licensing authority level rather than arbitrarily by pharmacy corporate management.

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:

Meh, if it's a prescription from someone with prescription authority they need to go ahead and fill it. I want my Dr. (whoever that may be) to be the one I make medical decisions with, not the corporate pharmacist making that decision arbitrarily after the fact.

ABSOLUTELY! Several years ago I was dealing with nerve pain after being hit with Guillain Barré Syndrome. The doc had originally prescribed Lyrica, but that was not doing the job, so he told me to discontinue the Lyrica and we would start gabapentin.

Late afternoon, I stopped at the Publix pharmacy to pick up the gabapentin. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription because it was "too similar to Lyrica" and she stated that I should not be taking both.

I told her that the Lyrica was being discontinued because it was not doing the job and the gabapentin was a replacement; I would be taking the gabapentin only and not the Lyrica. She obstinately refused to fill the prescription. Very irritating as this was Friday afternoon after the doctor's office had closed for the weekend.

I finally went to a pharmacy in the local Winn-Dixie store, explained to the pharmacist what had happened. He said that there was no excuse for that, immediately contacted the Publix pharmacy to get the prescription transferred, and filled it for me while I waited.

Hey Vtail

I see a lot of doctors prescribing gabapentin for pain lately because of the opioid crisis.

After back surgery it didn’t do shit for me. I’m curious how it makes you feel? Everyone I know that takes it, just makes them cry/weepy.

quote:

How about Nixon’s war on drugs we’ve been fighting for well over 50 years? More deadly drugs at higher availability and lowers prices than ever before.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Maybe we should eliminate the drinking age while we are at it.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

How about Nixon’s war on drugs we’ve been fighting for well over 50 years? More deadly drugs at higher availability and lowers prices than ever before.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Maybe we should eliminate the drinking age while we are at it.

Maybe you can answer my question?

You seem to make yourself awful scarce when the question is directed at you, but you don’t want to answer. Rather you try to be “clever” and obfuscate issues. Thank God I don’t sit on your couch. Do you even have a medical degree?

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:

Meh, if it's a prescription from someone with prescription authority they need to go ahead and fill it. I want my Dr. (whoever that may be) to be the one I make medical decisions with, not the corporate pharmacist making that decision arbitrarily after the fact.

ABSOLUTELY! Several years ago I was dealing with nerve pain after being hit with Guillain Barré Syndrome. The doc had originally prescribed Lyrica, but that was not doing the job, so he told me to discontinue the Lyrica and we would start gabapentin.

Late afternoon, I stopped at the Publix pharmacy to pick up the gabapentin. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription because it was "too similar to Lyrica" and she stated that I should not be taking both.

I told her that the Lyrica was being discontinued because it was not doing the job and the gabapentin was a replacement; I would be taking the gabapentin only and not the Lyrica. She obstinately refused to fill the prescription. Very irritating as this was Friday afternoon after the doctor's office had closed for the weekend.

I finally went to a pharmacy in the local Winn-Dixie store, explained to the pharmacist what had happened. He said that there was no excuse for that, immediately contacted the Publix pharmacy to get the prescription transferred, and filled it for me while I waited.

Yes, absolutely this. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, it sounds like a pain in the ass and of course it happened after business hours.

I WANT a pharmacist that will look out for me and say hey, this prescription might be a mistake and look into it if they see something off. I absolutely DON'T want a pharmacist (or pharmacy) to jump in the middle and veto the course of treatment my provider and I have decided is the proper course of treatment for me regardless of the ailment.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

Hey Vtail

I see a lot of doctors prescribing gabapentin for pain lately because of the opioid crisis.

After back surgery it didn’t do shit for me. I’m curious how it makes you feel? Everyone I know that takes it, just makes them cry/weepy.

It really did not seem to do anything for me, so we eventually discontinued it.

What was going on with me -- my right foot would feel like I was sticking it into an electrical outlet. The gabapentin did not seem to help.

I asked the doc whether CBD ointment would help, or is that just "magic snake oil." Doc replied that it seems to help some people, and in any event would not do any harm. I ordered a jar from SIGforum member downtownv and tried it. Like the doc said, it didn't do any harm. I can not truthfully state whether or not it did any good, as the nerve pain was intermittent anyway, although it is occurring less frequently now.

Yeah I’ve never met anybody where gabapentin did beans for them. Yet it’s prescribed so widely like aspirin vs. good pain killers.

To me it seems a lot like malpractice. It certainly was my case.

Spoke with my referring doctor (who recommended the surgeon) and got help after struggling for weeks without being able to stand without sheer ball-crushing in a vice-like pain (spinal nerves).

I’m glad you’re feeling better V-tail.

No real conclusions other than just a PSA on gabbies

Gabapentin was prescribed to me for “idiopathic” muscle spasms and twitches, which were a minor bother during the day and kept me from sleeping at night. It did suppress them until they went away, but it also made me drowsy, so I didn’t take it during the day.

My understanding of its alleged pain relief properties is that it works synergetically with NSAIDs.

Back to the OP, Adderall helps you focus, and really helps those with ADHD focus.

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
Back to the OP, Adderall helps you focus, and really helps those with ADHD focus.

Part of ADHD is basically that the brain is always “understimulated,” and strong stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin and their derivatives (at appropriate dosages) basically bring the brain up to being “normally stimulated.”

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
Back to the OP, Adderall helps you focus, and really helps those with ADHD focus.

Part of ADHD is basically that the brain is always “understimulated,” and strong stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin and their derivatives (at appropriate dosages) basically bring the brain up to being “normally stimulated.”

Apologies, but that is 50-year-old theoretical bullshit.

People were trying to dose kids with Ritalin in the 1970s. Does nothing of a kind.

It fucks up young men who are just trying to be young men.

Stop drugging our youth. Just stop it already and put the actual time into the boy.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Getting back to the original thread. It is refreshing to see these pharmacies clamping down on what is clearly a for profit pill mill. [/QUOTE

Welcome, but not entirely altruistic. Walgreens, CVS Walmart all recently hit with multi billion judgment in Ohio in connection with filling opioid prescriptions.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/23...for-the-opioid-epide

I feel compelled to share the reality of what is driving pharmacists and pharmacies to refuse to fill prescriptions for controlled and in some cases non-controlled substance prescriptions. If you feel that the pharmacist should just fill the prescription then you have to understand that they cannot "Just fill it".

The DEA and the department of justice have for quite some time held pharmacists, pharmacies, and drug wholesalers responsible for "what they should have known", when filling controlled substance prescriptions. If they think after the fact that a pharmacist should have been able to tell that the prescription was for an inappropriate use then can charge them with a crime and remove their ability to work for any entity that receives federal dollars. These actions will most likely result in the loss of their license to practice and very likely criminal charges.

The DEA has put so much pressure on the drug wholesalers (who never see anything but sales purchase trends) that the wholesalers now have investigatory units that investigate purchase trends. If a pharmacies purchases increase over their historical average by X percent (I do not know the current number) they will cut off the controlled substance purchases to that pharmacy until the pharmacy can respond with what they believe to be a satisfactory explanation. I have seen rural pharmacies that could not buy enough controlled substances to meet legitimate demands after a competitor in the same town went out of business and all of their patient transferred to the remaining pharmacy.

If you notice many of the prosecutions by the DOJ have been to the pharmacy chains and the wholesalers who sell them the drugs. So far as I can tell the three major wholesalers have paid $21 billion, CVS has paid $484 million, Rite-Aid $26 million, and Walgreens and Wal-Mart are still fighting the charges. If you will notice, not one prescriber has been charged.

So the reality is that the pharmacist, the pharmacy chain, and the wholesaler are being held responsible for the actions of those prescribers who are writing prescriptions that are deemed to be excessive by the DEA and DOJ, and face the loss of their license and worse if they make the wrong decision. None of these people have prescriptive rights or even access to your medical chart to help determine if the drug dosage and amounts are appropriate. Your anger should be directed towards the DOJ and those prescribers who operate outside the current medical guidelines.

Gabapentin is also receiving new focus because it is used by drug abusers to enhance the effects of the opioids and benzodiazepines.

Thank you. Locally they are targeting BOTH doctors and Pharmacies for Compounding scams. It is just not the opiates. In these particular cases the Pharmacists were in on it from the start.

A good friend is a pharmacist who now works as a hospital pharmacist. When she worked at a retail pharmacy she was told to fill ALL prescriptions. That was the reason she left. It is indeed a complicated and confusing process for many pharmacists.

Thank you for that. ^^^

Do you believe there’s an effort to undermine private business in an effort to replace it with a government solution?

I am on Gabapentin for a bulging disc issue. Doctor said I needed to move, but pain was preventing it. Couldn't sleep at night.

It not only helped me sleep, but it helps me move which keeps the problem in check. Fairly low dosage, but for me it worked.

^^^^^^^^^^

No, I believe that they are just going after the deep pockets of the big pharmacy chains and the wholesalers and forcing them to "police" prescribing habits. The dispensing function is the chokepoint where they can have the biggest impact with the least amount of effort.

I find it kind of interesting that the opioid crisis has been blamed on entities that cannot write a prescription. This is not a poke at physicians, as the medical trend in the nineties was to call pain the 5th vital sign and the thoughts were that nobody should ever be in pain . This was pushed by the drug companies but almost every medical group bought into this and it's now coming back to bite us in ass. The state of Oregon even required every medical professional to take a state created 4 hour Pain Management CME. This program pushed really, really hard on the "no patient should ever be in pain" perspective. The CME module was only taken down and then revamped a couple of years ago - maybe the state should have sued itself for helping to create the opioid crisis>

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
Back to the OP, Adderall helps you focus, and really helps those with ADHD focus.

Part of ADHD is basically that the brain is always “understimulated,” and strong stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin and their derivatives (at appropriate dosages) basically bring the brain up to being “normally stimulated.”

Apologies, but that is 50-year-old theoretical bullshit.

People were trying to dose kids with Ritalin in the 1970s. Does nothing of a kind.

It fucks up young men who are just trying to be young men.

Stop drugging our youth. Just stop it already and put the actual time into the boy.

With respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

ADHD is not a case of “oh, he’s a little wild, but boys will be boys.” Among other things, the type of behavioral issues you imply are not central to the definition of ADHD and plenty of girls have ADHD.

ADHD can be misdiagnosed and stimulant medications can be prescribed in inappropriate cases, but ADHD is real.

Ignoring anything subjective or self-reported, ADHD is associated with measurable differences in brain chemistry, particularly with regard to dopamine and norepinephrine, with measurable differences in brain structure, and with visible differences in brain function and reaction to stimuli on fMRI.

For many children and adults with ADHD, stimulant medications are literally life-changing and have a tremendous positive impact.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Nuclear:
Back to the OP, Adderall helps you focus, and really helps those with ADHD focus.

Part of ADHD is basically that the brain is always “understimulated,” and strong stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin and their derivatives (at appropriate dosages) basically bring the brain up to being “normally stimulated.”

Apologies, but that is 50-year-old theoretical bullshit.

People were trying to dose kids with Ritalin in the 1970s. Does nothing of a kind.

It fucks up young men who are just trying to be young men.

Stop drugging our youth. Just stop it already and put the actual time into the boy.

With respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

ADHD is not a case of “oh, he’s a little wild, but boys will be boys.” Among other things, the type of behavioral issues you imply are not central to the definition of ADHD and plenty of girls have ADHD.

ADHD can be misdiagnosed and stimulant medications can be prescribed in inappropriate cases, but ADHD is real.

Ignoring anything subjective or self-reported, ADHD is associated with measurable differences in brain chemistry, particularly with regard to dopamine and norepinephrine, with measurable differences in brain structure, and with visible differences in brain function and reaction to stimuli on fMRI.

For many children and adults with ADHD, stimulant medications are literally life-changing and have a tremendous positive impact.

So… It’s normal to prescribe amphetamines to kids. How the hell did humanity ever make it before now?

FYI - I know it changes brain chemistry; that’s the exact problem.

Sorry but I believe I have far more experience in this than you do. Guaranteed.

Raise any boys? Been diagnosed yourself? Do you just close a blind eye to all these people on Adderall/Vyvanse/Ritalin?

I’ve seen people w/ critical emotional breakdowns with those drugs. Scary as shit.

And it is the drugs creating severe emotional friability in normal males.

What happens when you stop taking the drug? Have you ever tried it?

I’ve seen people labeled ADHD live quite normally without the fucking stimulants. It requires addressing how they learn and how they understand the world. Not a handful of pills because that’s the easiest and cheapest path.

The cost on young men is too high for this pill-pushing Cosmetic psychopharmacology nonsense.

Good luck. I’m done w adhd.

Do what you want with yours and you. I don’t really give two wits.