Health update

The new update is that there is change.  Change is good, even if it seems bad, because change tells you which direction you ARE going, and which direction you SHOULD BE going.  Like, maybe, the opposite direction sometimes?

Anyway, I went to get a refill of my prescription last night, and the guy at Shoppers (I'll be calling their H/O, definitely not a performance I want to repeat) says to me "are you going back to your doctor soon?  have you had a blood test?"  I told him I'd had blood taken and was going to the dr in two weeks.  To me, that should have ended it right there.  One thing I'll give him, he's persistent.

He looked up the results of my blood test, actually gave them to me, and told me I had to stop taking these pills because it was dangerous, I should be on the opposite pills. 

OK, so my Dad (yes, an aside here) gets a muscle-relaxant prescription filled at Shoppers, I look up the drug interactions with what he's taking and it's all so NOT good.  That pharmacist didn't even look it up on their own system.  Meanwhile, mine went way overboard.

I told him I would talk to the dr about the results.  He was insistent that I not take any more pills, it was dangerous, yada yada yada.  I get that he went to school for a couple of years, but my specialist went for many many many more years, and knows WHY I'm taking them, has all the other test results.  The guy at the pharmacy does not.  He finally gave me the pills (after a distantly related argument about the insurance coverage), but not until I signed a document that said he explained it was dangerous to continue taking them and I was responsible.  Seriously?

I called the dr's office last night and explained what happened, and asked for a callback today.  This dr is fantastic - he called me back this morning, agrees that the pharmacist overstepped his bounds and could easily frighten many people with that attitude, and then he looked up  my results.  Turns out the meds are doing EXACTLY what they were supposed to, so I'm back down to one a day and seeing him in January.

I have to call Shoppers and voice my discomfort over this pharmacist.  I'm concerned that he might truly scare someone off meds that they need to be on.  To me the pharmacist should have said something more along the lines of - I can see your test results, based on what I'm reading, would you be able to get ahold of your doctors office tomorrow morning because I'm a bit concerned about the dosage.  Definitely not trying to tell me how dangerous it was - full stop.

As well, I find it a bit uncomfortable that he was able to go online and get all my results.  I didn't know that pharmacists had access to all of my medical data.  I mean, I don't - why should they?