Med mistake!

[klmno]

Can someone tell me how dangerous this is?

GFG had been on Tegretol, Lithobid, & seroquel. Lithobid was his front line MS and his highest dosage (1200mg/day). He was on a medium dose of tegretol but that had supposed to have been only PRN- however djj doesn't give meds prn so they had given it to him daily for months. His seroquel is very low and just there to help with sleep.

Then, this past week the pdoc agreed to start tapering gfg off meds completely, but gradually. GFG called tonight and the *%#& nurse made a mistake tonight.

They were supposed to start with a tegretol decrease and gfg said his night dosage of it had been cut in half the past few days. That would make sense b/c he took it twice a day. But tonight, a nurse came into work and gave him the original dose of tegretol but only half the lithobid.

GFG is in djj- not rtc- so there is no calling to complain. I can call his tdoc Monday but I was wondering if this is a real danger tonight?

[smallworld]

There is no medical person at DJJ you can check with tonight?

In your situation, I would call a 24-hour pharmacy and ask the pharmacist about the Lithium decrease/Tegretol increase. I don't think it's dangerous, but your GFG may be irritable from having so much Lithium cut at once and with an unintended increase in Tegretol.

[klmno]

There's no way I can reach djj tonight. GFG calls from his unit thru an acct line so I don't have that number and am not allowed to speak with hardly anyone in djj anyway. He had a similar problem with people who gave him his meds in detention last summer. I had to wait a few days then complain to the right person, but it was effective. I'm not sure it will be as effective with state djj.

Anyway, I don't know of any 24 hour pharmacies around here- I wonder if the pharmacy at our 24 hour walmart is open all night?? I may have to wait until tomorrow morning and call our regular pharmacy. I told gfg to tell them he needed to see a nurse first thing tomorrow am (which would be a different nurse) but he says he can't unless he's throwing up or has a fever- otherwise, he has to put a request in to go to the infirmary and that takes days to go thru. Then I told him that if he gets sick make sure they know about this mess-up. They all know that he's going thru a med-wash, but if this goes awry this weekend they need to be aware that it probably wasn't trying a med-wash that did it- it was coming down on tegretol, then going back up and lowering lithobid the same day.

I doubt (and hope) that this wasn't really a nurse but just a staff person assigned to give out meds. Being in djj, they make issue if a kid tells them that those aren't the right meds. That's another thing I'm going to mention- the kid has a right to ask them to double-check the rx if the meds don't look right.

Of course tonight gfg told me "I told you Mom- this is not the best place to monkey around with my meds". (Well, it's still better than being at home and going thru it.)

[smallworld]

Do you have a CVS in your area? Some have 24-hour pharmacies.

[klmno]

Yeah- that's my regular one. The one I go to closes at 9:00- maybe I can look online and see if there's another one that stays open around here.

[klmno]

Thanks, SW! I found one 24-hour CVS and called. The pharm said with only one dose it won't be dangerous due to slow decreases and time to level out amount in the blood, but he said I should try to reach someone over there tomorrow to make sure it doesn't continue fo a few doses.

[smallworld]

If you're willing to make a long-distance call, you could contact any 24-hour CVS in the country. There are definitely ones in the DC metro area that stay open 24 hours.

[smallworld]

Forget my last post. Glad you found a pharmacist to check with. Good luck with DJJ tomorrow.

[TerryJ2]

Great ideas! You came to the right place, KLMNO.
Best of luck.

[klmno]

I called and got lucky I guess when I called. Since it is a weekend I had to go thru some recordings and keep pushing the button for "needing immediate assistance" and it was finally someone in the infirmary that answered. She said she would leave a note asking the nurse to make sure he cut the tegretol in half istead of the lithium. Now, let's hope he actually sees and reads the note tonight. This lady on the phone acted like this was no big deal- "oh, he just cut the wrong one in half- it won't hurt your son".