Coming up with a name for a new medicine isn’t as easy as you think. Drug companies look for names that scream ‘take me’ to fix what ails you. The name also needs to stick in your doctor’s mind so it is easy to remember.
Read Safety ArticleThe pharmacy label on your prescription medicine has important information. It identifies you as the person who will be taking the medicine and tells you how to use your medicine properly and safely. Adding a label to medicines such as tubes of creams, small bottles of liquids or eye drops, and inhalers can be difficult. In these cases, the label is sometimes placed on the outer carton or package that contains the medicine.
Read Safety ArticleIt should never happen, but it's not unheard of for another patient's medication to somehow slip into your bag before you pick it up at the pharmacy. Bagging errors can happen when more than one patient's medications are in the pharmacy work field at the same time, often during the prescription packaging process. Pharmacists are well aware of this and most pharmacies do require that staff work on only one patient's medications at a time. Nevertheless, since bags containing prescription medications are not routinely opened at the point-of-sale, if an error does happen it may not be captured before the patient leaves the pharmacy.
Read Safety ArticleWhen you take a prescription to the pharmacy, you may have to wait for a period of time until it is ready. You are probably anxious to get home and may not realize just what your pharmacist is doing for you during that time. Here's a look at what your pharmacist typically does to make sure the medicine is safe and right for you.
Read Safety ArticleA doctor prescribed doxepin (Sinequan) 50 mg daily for a young man with depression. This medicine is available in a 50 mg capsule. But the pharmacy where the man had the prescription filled carried only 10 mg and 100 mg capsules. The lower dose (10 mg) is normally used to treat patients with chronic itching. A higher dose (50 mg or more) is the usual dose to treat depression.
Read Safety ArticleYour prescription medicine may not be available at the pharmacy due to a drug shortage. This problem can happen for many reasons. Sometimes the company that makes the medicine does not have enough of one of the ingredients. Other times, the company has stopped making your medicine altogether.
Read Safety ArticleSome medicines, including many prescribed for children, come in a powder form. Water must be added to the powder so the medicine can be easily measured and taken. The ratio of water to powder must be precise, so that the prescribed amount of the final liquid mixture provides the correct dose of medicine per milliliter (mL). It is best for the pharmacist to add water right before the medicine is picked up. Once mixed, the medicine often needs to be refrigerated to stay potent. But if the pharmacist forgets to add the water, or if the wrong amount of water is added at home, a serious dosing error can occur.
Read Safety ArticleWhen a middle-aged man arrived at a pharmacy to pick up a refill for lactulose (a prescription medicine commonly used as a laxative), he was told that he needed a new prescription from his doctor. There were no refills left on his previous prescription. The pharmacist suggested that the man could use KARO corn syrup as a substitute for lactulose until he visited his doctor for his next check-up.
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