Medication Mistakes Have Doubled in U.S. Since 2000: Study

[rangerrebew]

Medication Mistakes Have Doubled in U.S. Since 2000: Study
 
Monday, July 10, 2017

MONDAY, July 10, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Every minute of every day, three Americans call a poison control center because they've made a major mistake with their medication.

Some have taken the wrong dose. Some have double-dosed, and others have taken the wrong medicine altogether.

https://medlineplus.gov/news/fullstory_167108.html

[Applewood]

How about the pharmacies which give patients the wrong drug?  Had that happen to me once. Luckily, I caught the mistake before taking the medicine, but some people haven't been so lucky.  I personally know of several cases where  a person took a mislabeled drug, then became seriously ill  or died.

[RoosGirl]

Nurse killed my grandfather by giving him the wrong drug while in the hospital.  Luckily they were able to revive him.

[Silver Pines]

Nurse killed my grandfather by giving him the wrong drug while in the hospital.  Luckily they were able to revive him.

@RoosGirl

Thank God for that. 

A few years ago, my husband had three wisdom teeth extracted.  The surgeon's office was very busy and the nurse was distracted when she gave me his pain med, so I made her stop and repeated the dosage back to her.

Husband slept all day and into the evening.  The surgeon called to check on him, said he shouldn't be sleeping so much.  Turned out the nurse had specified a dosage that could have killed him.

[RoosGirl]

@RoosGirl

Thank God for that. 

A few years ago, my husband had three wisdom teeth extracted.  The surgeon's office was very busy and the nurse was distracted when she gave me his pain med, so I made her stop and repeated the dosage back to her.

Husband slept all day and into the evening.  The surgeon called to check on him, said he shouldn't be sleeping so much.  Turned out the nurse had specified a dosage that could have killed him.

That is infuriating!  Even after you made her double check it!  I'm glad her mistake didn't cause any serious damage.

A few weeks ago one of the dogs had to be on an antibiotic for 3 weeks.  The grocery store we shop at will give you certain antibiotics for free but only 2 weeks worth at a time.  At 3 pills a day for 14 days that's a lot of little pills.  I got to the end of the first week and it didn't look like there were going to be enough pills to finish out another week, so I dumped them all out and counted them and three days worth were missing.  So I took the bottle to the grocery with me that day explained the the pharmacist what was going on.  He tells me I should have counted them sooner and not waited soong to let them know.  I said, i'm supposed to dump 42 pills out and count them when I get home to make sure it's right?  He thought about that for a moment and kind of agreed that I shouldn't have had to do that.  I guess from now on you have to get online, look up what your pill is supposed to look like and how it's supposed to be marked and also count thr exact number you received.  But, my thought the whole time was that if that had been a pain med and not an antibiotic they probaby wouldn't have believed me.