I hate all of you who have impaired my ability to buy enough Sudafed to keep me and my family snot-free during cold season.
Rot in hell, with a cold. And no medications are available for it. Or Kleenex. You can just chap your nose for all eternity with your shirt sleeves. Or worse.
in australia u have to provide official id to the pharmacist to get these types of products now. this has cut down the multiple purchases by the drug lab crew. but not enough it seems. there has been some discussion that they may be prescription only in the future. obviously the medical profession don't want their waiting rooms filled up with common cold sufferers so we will have to wait and see.
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree. Nothing made me madder than the time we'd taken the family to Tahoe, and my children had needed "the cocktail" of Benadryl/Sudafed to help them over their wet, gaggy night coughs. But a late-night trip to the local supermarket was fruitless--couldn't get Sudafed because the pharmacist wasn't on duty. This pharmacist was PISSED at the meth-head junkies who've made us all suffer for their idiocy.
ReplyDeleteSo now I hoard Sudafed, like a junkie. I'm so afraid I'll be stuck somewhere without it, that I have cards of Sudafed in my home, my plane luggage, my office, my camping gear, my car, etc. And I always feel a little defensive when I have to ask the pharmacy clerk for it--I feel like I need to let them know "I swear I'm not a junkie." Which makes me look suspicious, I know.
I think we need to find a way to adulterate it with a harmless placebo, like guaifenesin, that would make it impossible to convert to meth. Then let us buy it when we need it.
Or, put a vending machine that requires a drivers license swipe or some such, and dispenses like 5 tabs max.
When you need it you need it.
FIE ON THE JUNKIES!! (Including the Oxycontin/Xanax/Vicodin/Norco/Soma junkies!!!)
I am not mad at the meth heads who cook meth, I'm mad at the idiot lawmakers who knuckle under to the hysteria and make it hard for normal people to get what they need.
ReplyDeleteAMEN. Don't get me started on the worthless sudafed PE that they pretend is just as good.
ReplyDeleteSo what, they don't sell Sudafed OTC anymore???? Things are getting ridic!
ReplyDeleteLet the meth-heads have all they can buy, roast their brain cells and die, good riddance!
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about those who have made it impossible to get anything but 2.5mg Lortab for my DDD. (I also hate that they call it "disease".)
ReplyDeleteChristy,
ReplyDeleteYes, you can still get Sudafed over the counter, but you have to get it from the Pharmacy. We have to keep it in the Pharmacy thanks to new regulations. Just ask Pharmacy employee, and be prepared to show your ID!
Don't be fooled by Sudafed PE- that stuff in rubbish.
Thank you Dr. Grumpy!
ReplyDeletePet peeve time.
ReplyDeleteI have FOUR kids. One itsy-bitsy box of Claritin D just DOESN'T cut it.
I have to send hubby, neighbor, older child (when home from college), grandparents, and the dog--she's over 18, in dog years.
Dr. Grumpy---just write yourself a script for it. (I know it's OTC) In Illinois (where I work), if there is a script for it, we can dispense however many you want. It won't be covered by insurance and you would still be paying the reg. cash price but you could get as many as you need. Just throw some refills on it and then just call it in when your getting low. Hope that helps some readers out there.
ReplyDeleteI was going to second the RX line. Here in AL (Where the max we can purchase is 6gm as opposed to 9gm in all the other states) as long as a Dr writes an Rx we can fill over the 6gm limit. No insurance covers it... but you won't have to pay sales tax :)
ReplyDeleteAnd btw, I'm that pharmacy person who screens both your appearance and teeth before selling you that sudafed. Sure it's profiling, and probably wrong, but I'm going to do it anyways.
I'm a pharmacist in Arkansas. We have to log into a central website set up by the state police to record the sale of pseudoephedrine. That way those who are buying it up for meth labs cannot get around the 3gm per day or 9gm per month limit, by going to multiple stores, because each sale is recorded by your driver's license number. I know it's a pain, but it really reduced the amount of meth labs.
ReplyDeleteJust get an Rx for your Sudafed or Claritin D, etc. and then we don't have to use that website to log the sale, and you won't have quantity limits or sales tax.
Thank George Bush II. He put this is in the Patriot Act.
ReplyDeleteDo you feel patriotic with your snotty nose?
I've chosen to not stock any of the PSE products. We are in a line off a major freeway that the meth heads use their runners to nail purchases. Each gets a crisp $20. They buy the most they can & get to pocket the change.
We got a call system with my colleagues. Once they start, they drive on south until they've hit each of us. It became too much work, so I bagged it & just don't sell it at all.
Yeah - George Bush - one of his finer moments that still lives on in your nasal passages!
My word verification: disted
Yeah - I dont get it - I dont see a reduction in meth labs/heads but I cant buy more than a 2 week supply of my Claritin D at a time.
ReplyDeleteI'll echo Soon-to-be-PharmD's comment - I often recommend to my patients on Claritin-D (or Zyrtec-D) that they think about getting a prescription. Because that way, they can get more than one box at a time - even if they pay cash for it. We have one patient who pays for 4 boxes (2 months) at a time on a regular basis. It's for medical reasons, she's not a meth-head, so her doctor prescribed it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the laws are in your state re: you writing for controlled RX's outside of your scope of practice (unless you claim it's for the sanity of your whole family?), but I'd definitely look into getting prescriptions.
I'm as peeved as "the mother". I have year round hayfever and can't buy more than one packet of the only antihistamine that works. so I buy one packet, my hubby buys one packet, my daughter buys one packet. A couple of weeks later we repaeat the process.
ReplyDeleteYep. ID and signature for Sudafed, but Express Scripts will send three months worth of Klonopin, Seroquel, pretty much anything - media mail with no tracking number.
ReplyDeleteAnd the meth heads love the Seroquel to come down off their "tweak"...
I work in an Australian pharmacy where we record the drivers licence number of every packet of pseudoephedrine containing medicine sold. The pharmacist has to be directly involved in the sale of and PSE product. All PSE products are kept in the dispensary where no customer can see them.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds kind of extreme but I dunno, it's not that huge a deal to hand over your D/L and answer some questions from the pharmacist. If you're too impatient to wait, you're not that sick, you don't need it, you can have some saline nasal spray and get out. Also, by talking to the pharmacist you're making sure you're getting the right treatment for the problem. I find it pretty shocking to hear how unregulated medicine is in the USA to be honest.
BTW, I doubt they'll make PSE a prescription only product. Same story with Nurofen Plus (ibuprofen/codeine), everybody kicking up a stink because of a few druggies. All that will happen is it will become more tightly regulated.
You are mad at the wrong people, doc. It's your friendly gubberment, using the force of law and no sense at all, who made the rules and have no problem making life harder on all the law-abiding people, in order to make a few bad eggs more reliant on imported mexican meth.
ReplyDeleteOf course, they are doing it all for the children: Hoosier Grandmother Arrested for Purchasing Cold Medication
May all the meth heads and legislators involved in this process get my year-round allergies and asthma. Breathing through their mouths is probably standard procedure for them, but they'll at least notice the chapped nose. Bastards.
ReplyDeleteIf you're too impatient to wait, you're not that sick,
Don't have much trouble with ragweed down under, then?
I know! it sucks! I have 3 kids, a husband, and an au pair, and we go through a lot of sudafed when a bug rips through the house! I tried to buy some last winter and was refused because I had bought too much too recently, and I had a complete meltdown over it. I mean, I was sick, feverish, runny-nosed and miserable, and so were my kids, and I was being refused the medication that might help us... I was mortified later on, I don't usually break down in public like that, but I didn't know what to do. In the end, believe it or not, a passer-by was willing to buy some on my behalf, and then I paid him for it, so it worked out. But WTF? The meth heads, surprise, are still making meth, and we have to be miserable at the same time?
ReplyDeleteThat is terrible. I don't think meth is such a problem over in the UK, because this government which has banned things like fun and is ultra PC clean has left Sudafed alone.
ReplyDeleteIn this one case I don't blame the government. I blame the druggies. I also blame the dealers who push the stuff and create new addicts, just like the drug companies that create new diagnoses to go along with their treatments to increase the market size of their drugs.
ReplyDeleteIt's disgusting. I'm glad the government is trying to control the availability of PSE, but I wish they'd go a step further in my state and have real-time registration of sales to prevent people driving up and down the state.
Sorry Anon 9.39, but PSE is not an appropriate medication for allergies. All it does it stop the runny nose, not the itching, watery eyes, etc. and shouldn't be taken every day. That's what drugs like Rhinocort are designed for.
ReplyDeleteThis is non-responsive to the problem, but damn, I just read Stephen King's newest novel, Under The Dome, and it's terrific. The book's meth chef doesn't bother sending minions out to the drugstores to buy wee packets of 12 Sudafed, he just orders it in bulk directly from China.
ReplyDeleteBut I AM curious: are the logs of Sudafed purchasers really monitored? How often, and by whom? I mean, the Bush administration was famous for gutting all the agencies that actually had to do the stuff they mandated.
Amen. I've taken to buying the largest box about once a month for a couple months before flu season starts and then stashing the sheets everywhere: purses, bookbacks, travel kits, and the medicine cabinet, of course. The stuff they put out on the shelf as a substitute just does not work. At all. And the identification procedures are just getting longer and longer. I think I may have signed over my firstborn child or my soul or something like that the last time I went.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, I don't know about in America, but in Australia we record it the same way as prescriptions so we have a record of the date purchased, and when you open up a patient profile, it has a record of every box they've bought from that pharmacy, and in the same place as their regular medications (so that when you ask if they're taking any other medications, and they say no, you can see that, yes, they are in fact taking two different BP meds and a host of antidepressants...nasal spray for you *eye roll*). There are different programs that pharmacies can participate in as well that if it isn't a regular customer, you can type in their name and it will show up their other PSE purchases across the state.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the majority of pharmacists would rather go through the hassle of selling PSE than that phenelyphrine crap.
So agree with Dr. Grumpy! Sudafed is the only thing that clears up my congestion so I can sleep. Best thing my NP ever prescribed for me.
ReplyDelete