Dosage Drama

Remember, my quest to get written prescriptions with plenty of refills so that getting Lilly her medications wasn’t such a hassle? Remember how it took two visits to get the prescriptions because of another emergency at the hospital? Well, imagine my frustration to find that the prescription was wrong — all wrong — when we finally needed refills.

Silly me for assuming it’d be right. Silly me for not looking more closely at it this whole time it sat in my drawer waiting to be needed. Silly, silly me.

I dropped it off at Walgreens, with plans to pick it up a couple days later while racing across town on errands. The staff at the pharmacy realized that the prescription called for .75 mg of xanax (alprazolam). The med isn’t available at that dose.

So, I think, Oh … Lilly has been on 1.0 mg. They say they’ll call the vet hospital and get it all straightened out. Fine.

Fine.

BUT, when I got back to pick it up, instead of getting 120 pills, which should last us 2 months, I get 12. Yes. 12.

I don’t realize the problem until I get home because I flew through the pharmacy drive-thru and ran home.

So, I call the pharmacist when I get home and ask (nicer than this), “What the @#$@#?”

We talk through it, and it turns out that Lilly had been taking .50 mg, not 1.0 mg. My mistake there, but the vet hospital did NOT correct it. And, they indeed had written down 12 pills, not 120.

Beyond OY!

So, when we took Ginko back for his post-op appointment, I asked our veterinarian to rewrite the prescription, and I specifically wrote out a note that said, we need 120 pills (with refills) at the dosage of .50 mg.

I took the new prescription back to the pharmacy and days later picked up the bottle … only to find that I indeed had 120 pills, but they were 1.0 mg, not .50 mg.

At this point, I figure, @#$@# it!!!!

I’ll just cut the pills in half, which means I just got 4 months of Lilly meds instead of 2. Right?

Well, maybe.

You see, and I know people who have learned this lesson the hard way, a half of a whole isn’t necessarily the .5 you need.

After a few days of missing this med because of the mix-up and a few days of 1/2 pills, Lilly’s behavior showed it:

• She was hiding.
• She was upset.
• She was flipping out over simple things.

I literally could NOT bring myself to go through another BIG hassle over the prescription. I honestly considered just NOT giving her the medicine anymore because it’s become such a @#$@ mess.

BUT, over time, Lilly seems to have adjusted to 1/2 pills sort of being about the right dose she needs. It isn’t perfect, but we can make it work.

Maybe this is a welcome boon to my budget since 120 1.0 mg pills is about the same cost as 120 .50 mg pills, but they last longer.

I’m trying to think that, at least, because getting these behavior medications Lilly needs has been nothing but a tour of customer service failings since day one.