The fun of taking drugs
Yesterday was Big Drug Day.
Every day here is Drug Day where I partake of the delicious delicacies produced by our friends in Big Pharma. Normally I would prefer to avoid Big Pharma but apparently I have a deficiency of some chemical or other and I can’t find a suitable natural alternative so I have to pop the pills every day.
Every week has a Little Drug Day. This is the day where I struggle, curse and generally lose the rag trying to decant horrible little pills into one of those little dispenser yokes.
Then once a month, along comes Big Drug Day.
This is the day where I pop down to the chemist for my monthly restock of the stash.
Some absolute genius in the great world of medicals has somehow decreed that my monthly supply should consist of 28 days, so I get 28 [or 56, depending on dosage] of my little coloured friends and this somehow is supposed to last me a month. Unfortunately, months have an irritating habit of generally having more than 28 days, so each month Big Drug Day occurs sooner and sooner in the month. Eventually and inevitably Big Drug Day happens twice in one month and I end up having a row with the pharmacist [“You’ve had this month’s supply so fuck off”].
After years of bickering and in the face of my impeccable logic they decreed that I was allowed one double month per year, so in effect there are thirteen months of 28 days each. However they still haven’t copped to the fact the 13 x 28 – 364 which means that sooner or later I end up being a day short [or two days in the case of a leap year]. Fucking idiots.
Anyhows, Big Drug Day is also a Little Drug Day, because [naturally] if I have run out of stash, my little pill dispenser box is empty. So having returned from the chemist I set about filling it with my newly obtained booty.
And that’s where the fun really begins.
One of my supply comes in a little bottle which is absolutely fine, but the rest all come in those horrible fucking bubble strips where you have to pierce one side and then pop out the pill from the other side. It is a pain in the fucking hole as invariably the pill pops out, bounces onto the floor and disappears under the couch amongst the dog hairs and other detritus of life.
One of my pills [the smallest – it’s fucking tiny] comes in the strongest of the bubble packs made out of industrial grade aluminium, or steel or something and the only way to remove it is to carefully pierce the bubble and then very carefully remove the tiny pill with a fingernail. At this stage there must be quite a few of them under the couch.
Yesterday I discovered they have come up with a new trick. One of the pills that used to come in a strip made of thin metal, now comes in a strip made of fucking plastic, or some equally impenetrable material. I need a fucking blowtorch to get the pill out. Why the hell can’t they just supply all the pills in little bottles?
All this fiddling around with pills is enough to put me in foul mood and cursing Big Pharma from an almighty height.
I need a pill to calm me down.
pfft 28 days who the fuck came up with that one? geeuz. My pharma I think takes the drugs, of my 30 day supply it can be 29 -33 in the bottle, works out in the end though when the wee one bounces under the desk I don’t need to fetch it out I can sweep it up with the rest of the crap. 28 days, stupid idiots..typical
We are in a permanent state of February here…..
Given the weather in Ireland, I guess it’s an easy mistake to make…
Mrs D sympathizes.
Last month her combined HRT pills were discontinued. So now she has two separate pills. Of course, they can’t just issue them, you have to go back to the doctor for a new prescription. This month my cholesterol buster pills (can’t take statins – see numerous rants on my blog!) were discontinued. Some genius decided to stop making 400mg Bezafibrate so they said I’ll have to take 2 200mg. New prescription! When I went to collect it, they gave me a pack of 400s. Duh?!?!?!?
Luckily Mrs D’s calm me down pills come in a bottle. Mind you, it does have a child proof cap that adults find impossible to open but that children have no problem with…
Statins are a major curse. Herself had near disastrous side effects and had to come off them almost immediately.
I used to have to cut one of my yokes in half every day. It had a coating that naturally was ineffective after the cut and the contents tasted absolutely foul – horrible and bitter. I mentioned this to Doc who promptly offered me the same thing with half the dose. Why the fuck couldn’t he have suggested them in the first place?
It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. A conspiracy…..
My wife takes some pills which were prescribed in Thailand, but we have to buy over the counter here (you can buy most medicines over the counter here, unless they think there is potential for abuse). She was prescribed 5 mg pills, and they are fairly expensive at €32 for a box of 30 x 5 mg. One day when we went to get them, the pharmacist said they only had boxes of the 10 mg, so I said ok, no prob, we can cut them in half. So I bought a box of 30 x 10 mg, expecting to pay double. Ha! They were €35 – three Euros more than the pack of 5 mg pills! Needless to say, we always buy 10 mg and cut them in half now, even though it’s a bit of a pain.
Plus when you cut the bastards (even with the pill cutting gadget) you never get it 50/50, I usually get 60/40 and sometimes 70/30 so I have to cut the bigger one again. <roll eyes>
I wonder how many of these pills had their efficacy determined by the same kind of ‘science’ that is used on tobacco related matters.
Take cholesterol for instance: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/statin-nation-the-documentary/
This is just one of the many doctors who are skeptical about cholesterol’s alleged negative role in causing heart disease.
I always thought that it was your liver that looked after your cholesterol, damage your liver with a crap diet including booze and then its bobs your uncle!
Heh, sounds a lot like my experience with my pills with the exception that the VA mails me my meds rather than me having to head to the druggist in person. I’m also fortunate that all my meds come in bottles and not blister packs as we call them here.
And the 28 day thing, which one of my meds comes in, was explained to me like this:
28 days = 4 weeks and 4 weeks which equals…well, equals 4 weeks.
Of course the more than obvious flaw in their reasoning is that 11 months out of the year are either 4 weeks and 2 days long or 4 weeks and 3 days long and well–you know the rest. Strangely enough the rest of my multi-colored/multi-function assortment of pills come in multiple amounts based on 30 days to the month which is closer to reality but still not quite there. And why does one pill out of the many I require based on 28 while the others are based on 30? The world may never know. I know I don’t.
28 days is a Lunar Month, give or take a few hours. So they should be running your prescriptions according to the Phases of the Moon, not according to the calendar. One advantage of this system is that it would coincide with the Chinese New Year that happens anytime between mid-January and early April each year. And exactly two weeks after the Lunar New Year the Chinese celebrate the Lantern Festival, so you could decorate the front of your house with red lanterns and taste the 70 under proof spirit called Moutai – knock it back, don’t sip. The lunar system is also observed by muslims, so the 9th lunar month is the beginning of Ramadan, the month of fasting. (Persons aged over 70 or who are too ill are excused from that observance.) After Ramadan they have the festival of Eid el Fitr and celebrate with coffee or Sprite. Celtic festivals like Imbolc and Samhain can also be celebrated according to lunar phases – drink poteen for those. Who needs tablets anyway?