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Denied a repeat prescription!!!
cliftyhanger - 6/4/20 at 05:16 PM

Being sensible, I emailed a request for a repeat prescription to my doctors surgery. Simple medication, brown asthma inhaler.
I see the asthma nurse every couple of years, and they have agreed that I can self medicate, as I tend to need the inhaler over the winter but use it less in the summer. At present my breathing is poor, so I need the inhaler.
Turns out that I last had a prescription in August 2018, I think I got it early, and still had one remaining. Anyway, now all used (as of yesterday)

Reply from the surgery is that they have denied the prescription as I don't use it enough!!!!

Can they change my medication on that basis?? I would think they would need to actually see, or at least discuss that with me??

Any doctors or medical peeps able to offer advice?? Think I need to call them tomorrow but advice is very much welcome.

jacko - 6/4/20 at 05:38 PM

My wife and daughter both use brown inhalers and have to see the doctor every year if you only go every two years I can see why they say you don't need it

Wife says make a appointment and see a doctor if your that bad it's the only way you will get sorted
Graham

rusty nuts - 6/4/20 at 05:48 PM

Could be because of Covid19 causing a shortage for people that use them regularly?

russbost - 6/4/20 at 06:13 PM

I would suggest ring the surgery & request a telephone appointment with your doctor.

I did just that with mine this week to get a prescription of the blue asthma inhaler, which wasn't currently on my repeat prescription (he'd prescribed one for me to try about a month ago) - he wouldn't make it a repeat prescription, but did prescribe another blue one, so between what I had & the new one I should have about 300+ "puffs" available b4 I need another - hopefully by then this current madness may have at least subsided somewhat

steve m - 6/4/20 at 06:28 PM

I am also an Asthma sufferer and used to use the brown pumps about 10 years ago, then the little orange ones
and I was never happy that they were doing anything

I now use Relvar Elipta preventative once a day, and my blue pump usage has dropped off considerably possibly a couple of times a week now, compared to several a day

The reason I "was told" to use the Relvar was that the brown pumps were ineffective and not produced any more

we do have a couple of Drs in the group, but one isn't very well at the moment !!!

steve

steve m - 6/4/20 at 06:33 PM

Ive just found an old brown pump

Beclazone 100, it expired 09 1999

think its going in the bin now!

cliftyhanger - 6/4/20 at 06:38 PM

Thanks chaps. Yes, think a call is in order.
See if I get an answer..

I did a quick google, seems the stuff is in short supply because asthmatics presumably fee more at risk and want to stock up. But I have genuinely run out, and reckon I may well have had the virus, and now suffering with a long term chesty cough/shortness of breath. Not great, lack of the meds will only make it worse.

PorkChop - 6/4/20 at 06:53 PM

I'm on both brown and blue inhalers. The brown one is a preventative, not a reliever (that's the job of the blue one).

I can see why they rejected your repeat, they would expect an inhaler to last 3-4 months at the most, not 18+ months!

Besides, there's a supply shortage of both types of brown inhaler (Clenil and its alternative whose name I can't remember) at the moment. I ordered my repeats over 2 weeks ago, I had my blue one no problem, I'm still waiting for my brown inhaler to arrive. I've had to reduce my usage of the brown inhaler and increase the number of times I need to use the blue to eek out what I have left as much as possible until I can get a new one.

cliftyhanger - 6/4/20 at 07:49 PM

I do self-medicate a fair bit, as said I only really use it in winter, probably november to april plus pollen season.
And not always twice a day. I do remember having a couple of half used ones when last prescribed 2 new ones.

Anyway, see how I get on tomorrow....

craig1410 - 7/4/20 at 12:00 AM

Hi,

I've had mild asthma since age 12 but it's more allergic in nature and certain types of dust (eg. old attic dust) will tend to set it off as will certain animals (eg. some but not all cats - dogs are generally fine). I've never been hospitalised and never needed a nebuliser or oxygen or anything stronger than the blue inhaler fortunately.

I'm 47 now so I've learned the patterns over the years and generally have it very well controlled. I stopped using the brown preventers several years ago (maybe 3-5 years) since I don't want to be taking corticosteroids unless I really need to. I understand how they work and know that you can't take them one day and stop the next day - you need to take them for several days/weeks for them to have any real effect. I have had a couple of occasions in the last 20 years where I did need to go back onto the brown inhaler to gain control of persistent congestion which was (scarily at the time) not relieved by the blue inhaler. This hasn't happened for 10+ years thankfully so in recent years I have not felt the need to waste NHS money on brown inhalers I don't use.

However, with Covid-19 on the loose, the advice I read for asthma sufferers was to ensure your asthma was under maximum control so I decided to go back on the brown preventers until such time as the danger had passed or I had recovered from having the virus. I have only recently moved house so I had to arrange a telephone appointment with my new doctor before they would authorise a repeat prescription. When I spoke with the doctor I told him my intentions and he agreed that it was a sensible precaution and granted my request for 2 brown and 2 blue inhalers.

I really don't like taking the brown inhalers because they tend to make me hoarse even though I always gargle with water after taking them. I'm also not that convinced that they benefit me much but I'd rather have the inconvenience of a hoarse throat than end up on a ventilator or worse!

So, don't take no for an answer - point out to your doctor that it is advised for anyone with asthma to take medication to prevent their condition from potentially complicating a covid-19 infection. I very much doubt that they will deny your reasonable request but if they do then ask for details of their complaints procedure and follow it up.

Stay safe!
Craig.

britishtrident - 7/4/20 at 09:32 AM

They should have offered you a telephone consultation, ask for one.

cliftyhanger - 7/4/20 at 10:11 AM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
They should have offered you a telephone consultation, ask for one.


I have just called them, spoke to "the prescribing team". I asked which doctor had assessed I no longer required medication.
Apparently because I hadn't had a recent prescription. I asked if they had checked my notes, and the discussion I had with tehastma nurse some time ago about self-medicating (if that is the correct term) and knowing when I needed to take it, usually winter and sometime pollen season. And I sometimes only use it once a day instead of 2, I know what I need.

She was horrified when I told her my blue ventolin was 2 years out of date, but I was using it to help my breathing as it was all I had (not used it for ages, the brown has almost made it redundant). I also asked what I should do if my breathing continued to deteriorate....

She has now issued a prescription for one of each inhaler.

And BT, spot on. I was not happy about the email response, so did phone. The scary part is there are vulnerable people out there who won't question decisions. And suffer because of it. For a doctor to make a clinical decision on flimsy evidence is hopeless and positively dangerous.

BTW done the calcs. each inhaler has 200 puffs. So 100 days, but sometimes I only have 1 puff a day, so say about 130 days. That is almost a winters worth, so the 2 I had, plus the odd ones left over from before would mean about 18 months worth worth, which is exactly how long they lasted. If theu looked at how often it had previously been prescribed, it is usually every 12-18 months.

jps - 7/4/20 at 11:21 AM

Sadly I think the whole medical system does rely quite heavily on the patient pushing to get what they think is right. I've found this having ongoing respiratory problems, which I am told are 'asthma' but still aren't sorted out.

If COVID had hit weeks earlier I would have been classed as one of the highest risk, due to the strength of preventer inhaler I was on. I had an ongoing chest infection and one response was for the asthma nurse to switch my preventer to an alternative, on a lower dose. Hasn't solved my problems (or made them worse!) but at least I am not 'high risk' anymore...

cliftyhanger - 7/4/20 at 11:35 AM

Don't get me started....
Often the response from a doctor seems to be "see how it goes" and "call us again if it gets any worse"
I reply "what if it doesn't improve?"

10 years ago my appendix burst, emergency hospital admission, massive doses of antibiotics. Horrible experience. Yet I had done to teh doctors 6 weeks earlier with pain and some symptoms. Several visits where the docs suggested the paint would probably just go away. Only when my temperature went beserk did they do a blood test (even then the receptionist said a weeks wait for blood test, when I said it was more urgent I was told to make an appt myself at the local polyclinic!) 2 days later I was in hospital. Now I am really pushy with doctors, seems the only way. Same issues with my parents, without me and my sister they would have been left to rot.

SteveWalker - 7/4/20 at 02:02 PM

We have difficulty every year. My son suffers from hay-fever, but can't take the over the counter prescriptions due to a probable allergic reaction to a previous medication (a tonic-clonic seizure, followed by cardio-respiratory arrest!) Each year they prescribe for him , which gets him through the school summer term and then he doesn't need it any more. Each year they have removed it because he hasn't had it for more than 6 months and each year they insist on a consultation - except due to the lengthy journey he is either on the extremely noisy bus or at school during their telephone consultation periods and has no access to a phone! Each year we have to go in and fill out paperwork and all of a sudden, they manage to prescribe it without a consultation