Monday
This week was mostly what I call patient admin. Last week I ordered some hydrocortisone through my doctors, but the pharmacy dispensed the wrong brand, Alissa, which can’t be broken into 2.5mg multiples and they only come in 10mg tablets. So I asked my husband to ring he GP to ask for it to be issued again. My husband is set up so he can make some decisions and ask some questions on my behalf for when I’m not able to. It might seem a simple thing, asking for another prescription, but, from what I can gather, hydrocortisone is on some kind of ‘watch list’ for prescribing, which means that doctors have to justify why they’re issuing it. Which is fine if you need it short term, but when you take it long term, you get quizzed an awful lot. Or get a lot of ‘computer says no’. If there was going to be a fight (and there have been many), it was going to be when I’d only asked for it a few days ago and was suddenly asking for more. My husband rang and there was no fight and I’d be able to collect it on Thursday.
Tuesday
Lots of people maybe don’t realise, but not all treatment is available on the NHS. I have chronic pain and my GP said the specific treatment plan for my specific type of pain is chiropractic care and physio. A lot of people might not realise either that you can only get limited sessions of things like physio- it’s not an indefinite thing for most conditions. I had my physio sessions on the NHS (I’ve been referred twice) and didn’t really feel like they were helping much. I can get referred back again for another course, but it wouldn’t be a productive use of anyone’s time or resources.
I’ve been seeing a private chiropractor for about 3 years on Tuesdays and Fridays and it’s the only thing that helps me keep on top of my pain. It’s one of the things that improves my quality of life, but it’s not available on the NHS, which means I have to pay for 2 sessions a week. The advantage is the standard of care is better than my physio was on the nhs (system problem not individuals) and that she’s able to treat my entire body rather than just the thing I went for initially, which an nhs physio would be limited to. This means I could take her my bone scan results I got last week and she’s going to interpret them for me- my GP said it’s not her problem and told me to ask my endo, but it’s not really his problem either. At least this way I can be in a position where I can be informed about my different options before going and asking my GP again.
Thursday
I dispatched my husband to get my prescription, but the pharmacy only had Alissa again. It’s a tad frustrating because they have on my file the other 3 brands I can take but it’s obviously not the really good pharmacist sorting it. The pharmacy say it’s he GP’s fault for not writing it on the script, the GP say it’s the pharmacy’s fault. This time my husband checked before leaving so he could hand it back and the pharmacist will order some more. This is why I tend to put in my repeats 2 weeks ahead of when I need them because between GP admin, pharmacy admin, random errors and supply issues, it does take 2 weeks to sort- this process started 10 days ago. It’s really hard to keep track of!
okthenwhatsnext 