I truly did not appreciate you hassling me when I tried to fill my prescription for Percocet. Yes, I understand the prescription is over a month old; however, I do not appreciate the following:
- Not telling me why you’re having issues filling it. If there is a law restricting the amount of time I have before a controlled substance prescription is no longer valid I, as a permanently pained patient, have a right to know. You being vague, saying “we’re working on it,” saying “don’t worry about it,” going over to your colleague to speak in hushed tones, and thus forcing me to pry is not appreciated.
- Telling me that waiting a month to fill said prescription is “suspicious because this medication is used to treat people in a lot of pain” is NOT, I repeat NOT, appreciated. You do not live in my body. You do not live my life. You do not know how much Percocet destroys me. As a pharmacist you should know that Percocet comes in two doses: for rhinos and for elephants. Unfortunately I am the size of a newborn rhino. A medication-sensitive newborn rhino. It does not take Vulcan logic to put two and two together. As a working man you should know that you have to do what you have to do to get by. For me, sometimes that means living in severe pain. After all, the alternative means being high as a kite 2+ days. Let’s be honest. I am a college student. There are classes to attend and problems sets to complete. There is no time for this nonsense. The Percocet is for weekends when I don’t have to get to class, or for weekdays when the pain spikes to Emergency Room bad. Yet I shouldn’t have to justify myself, or any of this, to you, or the 6+ people in line behind me.
- You see not filling a prescription for a month as more suspicious compared to someone who refills it every 30 days. I may be in college, but they are vastly more likely to be dealing than I am. Especially since this medication has been filled multiple times at your pharmacy. In case you were wondering, Percocet is one of my emergency medications. Yes, these migraines are just that bad. Triptans don’t work anymore. I keep a prescription for Percocet on hand so I don’t have to treck to my neurologist’s every time I run out. Why? it’s illegal for pharmacies to honor anything but paper prescriptions for controlled substances. Because people suck.
As it stands, you are very lucky I was rushing to work. Your manager would have heard about this otherwise. You have no right to deny me information about my medications, nor do you have any right to make a chronic pain sufferer, with my medication list and perpetual pain level, feel the way you did. You may have been doing your job, but there is a point when even that becomes inappropriate.
Sincerely,
A Dissatisfied Customer
A victim of my own body 
I am about to publish a story of a judgement call by a Pharmacist. I was looking for other stories to place in the end of the post, and yours is going in! I am sorry you had to go through this. It certainly seems that we, the human beings just trying to make it day by day in a life with pain, get the bad end of the stick when it comes to certain pharmacists. You make a valid point about the fill dates, I also do this when I have not had to use as much of my pain med, and other times, I am filling it the day doc writes it. Chronic, ongoing pain varies. By the day, the moment. I have been fighting this medication ‘judgement’ from pharmacists and others for years. I am over it! There are many pharmacies for us to CHOOSE to give our business to–and they need to know we are not putting up with this type of treatment–and move on.
Nice letter–you should send it to the store manager and the pharmacy manager.
Thank you! I’m sorry you know what this feels like…. What else bothered about the situation is this pharmacist is usually very polite and kind. In fact, he was being his usual self to the couple in front of me, whose English was poor. His personality completely changed the moment he saw my prescription. You make such a point about how we, as patients, can choose our pharmacy. There is a different one not far away. I should just transfer my prescriptions there. After this, I want nothing more to do with this branch.
I was going to speak to the pharmacy manager in person. Considering your comment, I’ll be taking this letter with me. Written documentation is always better than simple spoken word.