I was in the hospital for the dreaded staff infection MRSA: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.that I picked up from another hospital stay due to another illness. They allowed a patient that had the infection to stay in the room with me for a full week sharing everything instead of isolating him in his own room like they did me once I got it and was diagnosed at another hospital 2 week later..My experience was a bad reaction to a pain med. My dr prescribed it then completly disappeared. The meds made me severely vomit and blackout every 10 minutes for 6 hours until the meds wore off.

The hospital staff left me on my own checking only when the person in the room with me called because they were worried that I was on deaths door and they couldnt stand me violently hurling and they knew what the staff were doing to me was not right!!. The staff also did not hookup my call button so I had no contact with them. I couldnt see antything and kept groping for it but didnt see it not hooked up until I gained back my senses.. All I could do was situp leaning on the rails until i fell back from blacking out. I do remember the nurse coming in occasionally saying they still couldnt contact the dr to give me any thing to counter the bad reaction. my question "Where the hells another one that can help me?"

I vomited all over myself and in a pink tub for hours. Then when i blacked out for a few minutes over and over I dumped it all over my feet and the floor. It was one of the most horrible experiences I have ever had in my life. O couldnnt even call my wife for help i was so ill..It was like I was a prisoner and no one would help me when I knew relief was just a shot away.

The foillowing day I had new nurses and when my dr came in and I asked him what the HELL happened he just grinned and said hmmm my cell must not have been working. You would have thought since he was oncall for major local hospitals and he didnt get a phone call in 6 hours he mighta thought there was something obviously wrong with his cell.

I dont believe him and never will. They treated it like it was just another day in paradise..no aplogy nothing. They totally destroyed my faith in the hospital system staff that day.

Let me start off by saying that I realize I'm a difficult patient because I'm afraid of  taking medicene.  I would rather try alternative cures first.

But  after 5 months of unrelenting pain with three unfilled pain perscriptions in my desk and several boxes of samples given to me by Dr's sittiing unused on the counter, I  finally got tired of  the pain and filled the perscription for Tramadol (Ultram).

10 hours later I was in the emergency room with a puffy face, raspy voice and total confusion.  I was admitted and given benedryl and steriods by IV for the next two days.  I don't blame my  Dr's,  or the pharmacy.  Maybe I blame the drug company a little bit for not having clearer warnings on the fact sheet that accompanied the drug.  And, I wished my family Dr had tried harder to find the source of the pain and figure out how to treat it  instead of just giving me one perscription after another for pain.  (I'm sure he thought I was dr. shopping for pain pills).

My point is, these things happen.  That's why I was afraid of taking medicene to begin with.

As it turns out,  while I was in the hospital, tests were made to discover the source of my pain.   All the tests looked fine, so now it's been narrowed down to a nerve problem. 

It was my gastroenterologist who finally took the time to look at all the tests  and come up with that determination.  Thank you Dr. R.

Please be careful when you take a new drug.  Be extremely cautious when giving a new drug to a child.    Look for signs of a reaction. 

1.  Confusion

2. Puffy face or lips

3.  Raspy voice

4.  Itching

5.  Hives

Each drug has it's own set of symptoms of a reaction.  But the above list  is a general list of what can happen during a reaction to any drug.

Steve, perhaps what set Mocus off was the part that said the "total injury estimate was conservative."

But, you're right.  I love this guy.

Doctors know suprisingly little about the drugs they prescribe...  What's the alternative?  If doctors were only willing to perscribe drugs they knew alot about, each doctor would have a very limited amount of drugs to offer you, and not necesassrily what you need or the best one for your condition.  Then you'd have to go doctor shopping to find one that could prescribe what you need, and that would be illegal.

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I hate that the government takes away our personal responsiblity and requires us to turn responsiblity for ourselves over to others.  I am perfectly capable of determining for myself what medicine (if any) I need.  Doctors should be more like lawyers....  They should advise you on what they think you should do, and ultimately it should be up to you to decide what is best for you.

I posted this elsewhere but I was given an incorrect prescription by Longs, too.  It was for a refill and I caught it.  It wasn't a matter of handwriting - just the pharmacy's error.  I feel sorry for people who aren't able to stay on top of their own meds and monitor what they're taking.  Years ago, when we were with Kaiser, I was on 12 different meds!  We changed our insurance and they were whittled down to 5. 

I check out the PDR or online for interactions.  My MD is real sharp but I do not trust Longs.

posted by KatieB

Dear KatieB,

.

I do enjoy reading your posts, but on this topic I must disagree with you.  If you can't stay on top of your own meds because you take twelve different medications, how do you expect a pharmicist to do it when they issue thousands of different medications to strangers every day?  And doctors, perscribing medications to strangers, hundreds of them, all day long.

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If a person is unable to care for theirselves because of their age, illness, or disabiltity, that's where family steps in and help... Or the church ( a great use of the church).  It shouldn't be someone else's job to manage the medication and health care of another adult.

Doctors , nurses and pharmacists are just like any other profession. Some are competent, some are not, and even the competent ones make mistakes sometimes. The patient has to be proactive about what they are putting in their body. You should check all your medications for interactions. Doctors are far from gods, they make mistakes. The electronic method will help in the reading of prescriptions, but data is only as good as what is entered. Just last week my wife received the wrong prescription. when we called the pharmacy, instead of a REAL investigation, they sluffed it off as a generic. My investigation proved that to not be the case.

As Katie said, PDRs are available online. Most bottles now give a description of the drug. If it says it's a small white tablet, and you have a large purple capsule, an alarm should go off. Ultimately YOU are responsible for what goes in your body, unless you are in the hospital, even then if something doesn't seem right, QUESTION IT!  You're family's not going to feel any better about your death, coma, kidney failure, or anaphalactic shock if it's not your error.  Taking anything into your body, without KNOWING what it is, is like stepping out in front of a speeding car, because you have the right of way.

Antiex

Yep. Dying during a hospital stay from something you didn't go in for is an epidemic. Over 2 million people a year pick up an infection at the hospital and about 90,000 die, more than from auto accidents, AIDS and breast cancer combined!

What can be done??? If health care professionals actually WASHED THEIR HANDS and CHANGED THEIR GLOVES between patients, the statistics would improve dramatically!

I had surgery a few years ago (my first real stay in a hospital) and they took my thyroid meds and replaced them with a different brand and color.  I wouldn't take them.  I used the morphine pump a few times and when I found out it was causing the driest mouth on earth I stopped using it.  They tried to substitute with oral pain meds and knowing from experience that all opiates make me violently ill, I refused them.  I ended up taking Extra Strength Tylenol that I had my grandson get at the store for me.  When I was checking out , the nurse brought me a prescription that was made out to another woman.  When I told her, she said nooo...she had just been given it to give to me.  I told her THAT IS NOT MY NAME and she said..oh dear..that's the lady across the hall who is also checking out.

  I won't take ANY new med without researching it on line for it purpose, history, and side effects.  Also find out what other meds will interact with it and what foods to avoid while taking it.

It's your health and life folks  Do some investigating..do your homework.

Yikes Nancy. Not exactly a 4 star visit was it?

My daughter's friend's mom had a metal instrument left in her after surgery. That makes it real hard to get through the airport!

None of this is making me over confident of our health care system!!!  I quit Kaiser because of the propensity to prescribe another pill instead of getting to the bottom of a problem.  A pharmacologist went through my meds and dispatched several of them, at my request! 

Nancy, you have really had a time of it!  I had surgery in '01 and was told to stay ahead of the pain and use the pump every four hours, whether or not I needed it.  And the rationale for that is???  I can't take any NSAIDS and since my son-in-law died from over-medicating with acetamenophine, I don't know what to do.  I have chronic headaches and try to only take one tylenol when I can't stand it any more.

I didn't mean to sound as if I'm down on all technicians.  I've had a running battle with Longs.  I, of all people, knows what it's like to make a mistake, but I also know how to apologize when I do so!!!  These guys are so danged arrogant they act as though it's your fault they made the mistake because you poked around and found it. 

This all comes on the heels of a nurse in the ICU when my son died, after coming and getting us to view his body, said, "I've had the worst night ever!  I haven't been able to sit down once and my feet are killing me!"  Lady, I don't give a good damn about your stinkin' feet!

So, I'm just a tad angry at the whole bunch of 'em right now.

KatieB

My experience at Memorial Hosp. wasn't just the meds.  They brought breakfast (such as it was) and no one came back around til lunch.  When my grandson got there around 5 he asked if that was my dinner tray..I said no, it's my lunch tray and no ones been in the room since they brought the lunch tray.  He took the tray to the nurses station and told them it was his grandmothers lunch tray and where would they like it.  The nurse told him just to take it on down to the cafeteria.  He was a bit miffed but did it and took some puddings from the fridge while he was there.  After an entire afternoon with no one coming around, one came in at about 2 AM and started emptying trash cans and banging around.  Thank goodness I was just having some plumbing done, it it had been a serious illness no one would have known my condition til the kids came to see me.

KatieB, that was a terrible thing to have to hear.  I realize hospital staffs get immune to the things they see but they nned to realize that we don't.  Especially when it's our family member.