wrong prescription filled by Boots

taurusgb

Firstly let me stress I am NOT looking to sue or get something for nothing....I just want to know whether my expectations are reasonable.

I am currently at home sick and not finding it easy to get out and about. I am being prescribed co-codamol (30mg / 500mg) for pain relief. Mid last week my daughter fetched my prescription from our local Boots chemist and said they had told her they didn't have the normal drug my doctor had prescribed so had given me Solpadol instead as it is the same painkiller.

I finished my old prescription on Friday so started the Solpadol half way through the day. Since then I have had terrible nausea and acid reflux (I was diagnosed with GERD last year). Also instead of sleeping through the night and being able to escape the pain (codiene makes me drowsy) I have been almost hyper and have had virtually no sleep.

Having done some googling it turns out that Solpadol contains caffiene....whoch is probably why I couldn't sleep and which is a known trigger for GERD reflux.

Boots have dispensed several perscriptions of medication to me for GERD so a look on their computer should have told them that a medication containing caffiene would not be a good idea for me.

So my question is - is it reasonable for me to expect Boots to change the pack of 100 Solpadol (actually 90 as I had taken 10 before I realsied what was making me feel so horrible) for my usual co-codamol at no cost to myself?

An added problem is that I have a hospital appointment tomorrow morning so I won't have chance to ask my doctor to issue a new prescription (and should this be necessary anyway?)

Boots do a home delivery service, I live 2 streets away so I would like them to deliver the new pills and take away the old ones (my grown up daughter will be here will I am at hospital)

Any advice appreciated

bcl999

I've stopped using Boots for prescriptions because of a similar problem and now use LLoydspharmacy who give me exactly what is stated on my prescription. I think it depends on how good the actual pharmacist is in the particular store. As well as giving me alternatives, Boots was always making mistakes with quantities, despite the fact that the dispensing labels had 2 sets of initials, meaning they were supposed to have been checked by someone.

veryunsure

I won't use the Boots prescription service as they wanted £2.99 to deliver to my home. My co-op pharmacy delivers it for free.

eagleeye

Hi
Sometimes boots have got brand equalisation deal products for generics for example if your doctor writes salbutamol inhaler 100mcg then boots will dispense ventolin 100 mcg brand.This doesn't mean that you have been given wrong drug.

Solpadol caplets- generic ingredients- co-codamol 30/500 tablets.The genuine leaflet can be printed/downloaded from

http://www.medicines.org.uk/EMC/medicine/20850/XPIL/Solpadol+Caplets/


If your doctor has written prescription for co-codamol 8/500mg -then solpadol is not the correct medication.
If you need detailed information then submit your query on https://www.locumvoice.com where pharmacist member will reply you accordingly.

sproggi

I deal with co-op pharmacy, but I would phone Boots tomorrow and explain your situation, explain that you have used 10 tablets and had a reaction to them, tell them that since then you have found that they contain caffine and due to your condition, you cannot take them, ask that they exchange the remaining tablet for the ones that your Dr prescribed and if they refuse, phone your GP, they can contact Boots and request that they issue you with a prescription.

From having to deal with OH's mountain of meds, my tips for the future would be:

Ask your GP if he/she would be willing to write a letter stating that you must have the exact meds on your prescription, then take this to any pharmacy that you use and ask them to put a copy on your records so that whichever pharmacist is working, your notes should show this. I know that sometimes the pharmacy will dispense a cheaper version and that these do not always agree with people, so that may be another thing to be aware of (OH cannot have non-generic and his consultant provided a letter to confirm this).

Ensure that you put in your repeat prescription in in plenty of time, that way, if they do run out, they have time to order more in and fill your prescription with the correct meds.

Ask that they put an alert on their computer so that any meds that contain anything that you should not have will cause the computer to bleep and flash a warning on the screen. They may tell you that the computer will automatically warn them of anything like this, but I know that this does not always work.

HTH

Sproggi

fiendishly

eagleeye is correct, there is no caffeine in solpadol, just paracetamol and codeine. 500/30mg.

fluffnutter

Do you mean Solpadeine? Solpadol doesn't contain caffeine. Solpadeine does.

ellay864

What information did you find while googling? It may be that a brand available elsewhere has caffeine in but the formulations of solpadol in the UK don't contain caffeine. And you say that codeine helps you sleep but now you can't, yet solpadol contains the same amount of codeine. Solpadol is a brand name for co-codamol. By prescribing generic co-codamol you could end up with a different brand each time, so I don't see how you can be so sure this is a Boots mistake. What they have prescribed IS co-codamol. If you want to know what's in the tablets/caplets that you've got now, look at the leaflet in the pack - that will tell you the ingredients. Looking online could tell you what is in a pack marketed in any other country in the world!
Having said that, if you do take a different brand that has a different formulation or different excipients (non-active ingredients) you could react differently so you should highlight that to your doctor or the pharmacist. You should also make sure you haven't taken any other medicines that could have had an effect (anything else with paracetamol in it?) or even excess alcohol. And codeine is not something that's recommended to take for too long. Sometimes just prolonged dosing of these sort of tablets can make you feel rough

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

I don't know about the caffeine content of solpadeine but I do know that co codomol, solpadeine and Kapak can all be substituted for each other.

I've had all three in the past, they don't work for me anymore though.