Posted on 01/04/2016 8:24:20 AM PST by huldah1776
Bobbie Bee can no longer contain her outrage after her husband was prescribed a drug that if taken in conjunction with his current cocktail of medications potentially could have raised his serotonin levels to dangerous heights, a risk that she says - and the FDA warns — "could've been deadly."
"I can't carry them all at once," Bobbie J. Bee says over the unmistakable sound of pills individually bouncing off the sides of plastic bottling tubes as she walks in from her home's kitchen and into the dining room.
She lays the containers out one-by-one.
"These are for nerves, anger and anxiety," Bee says as she reads each bottle description carefully. "Those are so he can go to sleep; and these ones are so he can stay asleep."
(Excerpt) Read more at jdnews.com ...
Another thing, physician's assistants are making decisions for which they are not trained. Whistle blowers are scared to death. Privatize the hospitals and medical centers. After obamacare is repealed.
Daily prayers for you all, and for the prayer warriors, join the prayer ping list. Contact Freeper NEWwoman.
My son has a close friend who is in a similar predicament.
Discharged from the Army with full disability rating, he gets his benefits (so I’m told) only so long as he stays under VA medical and psychiatric care.
That “care” includes so many prescription mood altering drugs that he currently can’t even remember why he was discharged or give an account of what’s wrong with him.
This story does not surprise me in the least.
Prayers up for this Wounded Warrior.
I’m wondering if the computer system the VA pharmacists use is antiquated or inadequate. Wouldn’t a pharmacist be alerted by the software if there is a drug interaction while processing any prescription?
You would think/hope that there was a database that reference all meds prescribed and their interactions, especially since they are all prescribed by the VA, but I would think a well qualified Pharmacist should be knowledgeable about drug interactions, a especially ones that they dispense regularly.
Not really.
My MIL had a whole bunch of different meds, saw her doc (non-VA), and we had to monitor her prescriptions. She would receive prescriptions from various docs and we would then take the “list” to her primary care doc and he would edit the list as necessary.
Suggestion, they can get care elsewhere if not near a VA hospital. I would move or move to a VA center with a great reputation. If there is one. Delaware is better than philly for example.
“Discharged from the Army with full disability rating, he gets his benefits (so I’m told) only so long as he stays under VA medical and psychiatric care.”
Never heard of that for those that retired from active duty.
Retire with a service-connected disability does not require you limit your care to VA.
I retired with a 40% rating and have always seen private docs for care. No issues. Covered by Tri-Care and had to pay the deductible but if I went to the VA then there would be no charge.
Maybe your friend left the service before retirement and therefore does not have Tri-Care, so if he wishes to receive “no cost” care, he must stay with the VA.
Maybe there a more natural alternative.
Our Marine who is 100% disabled, retired with service connected disability, can only get care through the VA for full coverage. I don’t know all of the details, but he has been getting the runaround for many months over some surgery that he needs to have, and has tried to have it done more locally, sooner, but told he has to have it at a VA hospital.
Disgusting and heartbreaking. Thank you for posting.
Wouldn’t a pharmacist be alerted by the software if there is a drug interaction while processing any prescription?
I would imagine a drug interaction database couldn’t predict the simultaneous interactions of 16 different medications. The combinations of effects is just too large. Add in the effect of a person’s diet, drinking, etc. and it gets even more unpredictable. The bottom line is 16 meds is just way too many for any poor soul to take.
VA will kill you if given a chance. I have my own experiences with them.
Your issue as I see it is the Tri-Care coverage for retired (full 20-yrs service), versus medically retired (no Tri-Care).
I practice within the VA system. Their electronic medical records system is one of the best around. If I try to order a med that has harmful interactions with another that the vet is taking it automatically produces very visible alerts. The only way around that is for the provider to over-ride the system and I have seen this happen A LOT, especially with behavioral health providers. I try to limit the amount of meds that the vets under my care receive to avoid these kinds of problems.
BTW, most of the meds in the VA system are inexpensive generics. Trying to get brand name drugs is difficult and often impossible. VA approved diabetes treatment drugs are about 20 years behind what is available in the private sector.
however, I will say that the attitude of our society for a few decades now is more drugs, more drugs, more drugs...and so many people who go to the doctor are disappointed if not prescribed "something" and complain that the doctor "didn't do anything" for them....
its true, we all know it...
which is why we have germs now that are antibiotic resistant...which is why we have people on ungodly amts of narcotics...
how can a provider over-ride the system? Is it because like the diabetes drugs they are behind the times?
I think the VA wants them dead. Homeland inSecurity listed vets as domestic terrorists.
That is built in to the system. Most of the time the alerts are because of “theoretical” interactions, i.e. it was reported once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away. Other times it is serious, i.e. you don’t prescribe large doses of opiates with large doses of benzodiazepines. Those are the combos that can get patients in trouble.
Using old diabetes drugs is simply for cost savings. The old drugs are cheap and relatively effective. The newer drugs are very expensive and relatively effective and have a long list of bad side effects.
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