A couple of times a year, I’ll go to prescribe a medication and the patient will remind me: “Don’t give me anything with Red Dye Number 6.” That’s when I try to find a reason to not prescribe anything.
Sometimes, however, you’re stuck. You write the prescription. No one has any idea what dye is in the medication, if any. The patient goes to the pharmacy and tells the pharmacist: “It better not have Red Dye Number 6! Does it have Red Dye Number 6?”
The pharmacy tech: “I dunno. Ask your doctor.”
Our phone rings. Our response: “We have no idea. Ask your pharmacist. They have the printed insert. They can look it up.”Now things are getting testy. The pharmacy is crowded. The pharmacist is super busy.
The whole nonsense is the particular dye in question is in eighteen different foods, drinks and candies the patient ate today without ill effect.
Logic will not work here, however, and ultimately what happens is the drug is substituted for a drug the patient used in the past without horrible problems.
3 thoughts on ““I only do hypoallergenic medicines!””
1
It’s like trying to convince someone that it is physiologically impossible to be allergic to cortisone or epinephrine…..
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Ha Ha. Not even worth the trouble.
That’s why, whenever I prescribe something for a patient who’s had something similar before (which is most times) I always ask, “Is there anything you’ve taken for this before that has either worked well, not worked, or caused problems?”
If they say, “I’m allergic to all antibiotics that begin with ‘A'” or “penicillin makes me sneeze” or “I always need a double Z-Pak,” I just avoid whatever and move along. It saves a lot of phone calls later.
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I have an exceptionally disastrous patient who is “allergic to ALL antibiotics.” My reply when they come in for their URI symptoms is to say, “here’s your tessalon prescription.”
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It’s like trying to convince someone that it is physiologically impossible to be allergic to cortisone or epinephrine…..
Ha Ha. Not even worth the trouble.
That’s why, whenever I prescribe something for a patient who’s had something similar before (which is most times) I always ask, “Is there anything you’ve taken for this before that has either worked well, not worked, or caused problems?”
If they say, “I’m allergic to all antibiotics that begin with ‘A'” or “penicillin makes me sneeze” or “I always need a double Z-Pak,” I just avoid whatever and move along. It saves a lot of phone calls later.
I have an exceptionally disastrous patient who is “allergic to ALL antibiotics.” My reply when they come in for their URI symptoms is to say, “here’s your tessalon prescription.”