We Failed the NuvaRing Girl

Do you know what a NuvaRing is? You can read up on it here: http://www.nuvaring.com/consumer/. If you didn't click that link, I'll just tell you that it's a prescription contraceptive that you insert somewhere. Somehow, a girl made it through a doctor visit and a pharmacy visit without understanding what she was supposed to do with that thing. She came into the pharmacy a few days after she picked up her prescription to ask if we had a bigger one. She held up her wrist to show us it was cutting off circulation. I'll give her credit for getting that ring over her hand, but my goodness!

Boogie

Please don't save your boogers in a tissue to bring in to show the pharmacist and to ask his or her opinion on whether or not you have a sinus infection. Thanks in advance. 

Balls

The title should warn you that this post is a wee bit graphic. Read on at your own risk. I was telling a patient about his new prescription, a muscle relaxant. At the end of my consult, he asked if it would relax all of his muscles. I told him the medication didn't target a specific muscle and that yes, it would. Then he asked, "Will it even relax my balls?" I paused to wait for the smile to come to his face, but he was totally serious. It's a valid concern, I suppose.

Lost in Translation?

A foreign tourist was asking for my advice regarding constipation. He spoke English fairly well, but I'm hoping that he either wanted to joke with me or had a lapse in language skills when he confessed to me that trying to "dig it out with a spoon" hadn't worked. Did I have anything "stronger" that might work? Hmmm...

Another Top 10 List

Top ten things that tell your pharmacist you're a drug dealer:


1. You're here to fill your prescription for oxycodone 30mg and you and your girlfriend smell like marijuana, or you smell like marijuana covered by musk.  
2. You have gold teeth, and oodles of other gold items.  Ya know, bling. (Gold teeth aren't common in these parts, so they tend to stick out like gold teeth.)
3. When I tell you that I can't fill your oxycodone right now or not at all today, instead of crying that you are in a grip of pain, you do the following: look at your watch, complain you had to drive 2 hours out of your way, look at your watch again, make a few phone calls, and then leave.
4. You drop off the prescription, I see you waiting in your car or inside on our benches while we fill it, and someone else (not seated with you) comes in to pay for it. 
5. You're friendly --- I mean, REALLY friendly. You compliment my 2-day unwashed hair. You ask me if I've lost weight, when I've never seen you before. You say you're looking for a "personal banker" and ask who mine is. You tell me you're finding Jesus and want to start going to church every week and ask for a recommendation for a place to attend worship services. 
6. You complain about how much the price has gone up on your oxycodone, and then when it's time to pay, we see a massive wad of $100 bills come out.
7. You offer cheap bribes. For example, you ask if there's anything you can get me at McDonald's while I fill your prescription.
8. After you leave with your pills in hand, you drive to the other end of the parking lot in your deeply-tinted window car to meet up with another car for 10 seconds. Then you both speed off in opposite directions. Good one guys.
9. You and your roommate, and your roommate's sister, and your boyfriend, and your boyfriend's sister, and your best friend, and your other roommate all go to the same doctor out of state and are all on the same medication, oxycodone 30mg.
10. You aren't ever prescribed any medication other than oxycodone 30mg, and you're taking a boatload of it every month.

I Finally Look Old Enough

When patients come to the pharmacy, especially those of advanced age, they are confused when they're told I'm the pharmacist because I'm "very young" or "a girl." They'll ask to talk to the "real" pharmacist. I'm okay with that and have never been offended, but I'm trying to decide how I should feel about what happened earlier this week. I approached a man at the pharmacy window for a consult about medication he was picking up for his father. He told me there was no need to discuss it, because his father had been on that medication since "your oldest child was very young." The blank stare on my face encouraged him further, "Since your oldest child was very, very young. I mean, REALLY young. He's been on this medication since your oldest child was in diapers." I still just stared and then finally responded, "So he's been taking it for almost 2 years?" Then he was the one with the blank stare. We parted ways without another word spoken.