why wouldnt a doctor call in a rx for a nausea medication I have been on before?

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
This is absolutely idiotic. Its not like its a narcotic. Its not even something you could sell. Its zofran for heavens sake. Personally I wanted to go back to phenergan because it worked better but for some reason they changed me to zofran which doesnt seem to work as well. I have 3 pills left. I get nauseated quite often because of taking my medications if I dont have enough on my stomach or even for no reason at all. I dont know. I use them when the prilosec doesnt do the job and my stomach is still nauseated.

But no, he wont write the script. If I still need pills for nausea I need a gastro. What? This is why insurance is so high. I take morphine. Morphine makes you nauseous. Its a known fact. My doctor used to just give me the pills from there. Guess I am gonna ask the pain doctor for some again. I dont need to see a gastro to ask for some phenergan. That just seems a bit extreme to me. "hello dr, I feel nauseous because I am on pain medications and sometimes when I take my pills without eating in a while. Can I get some phenergan or zofran?" What a waste of a specialists time.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
It's hard to think that this is anything other than jumping through hoops. But, there may be something he is over/underthinking, and if I were seeing him in person I'd have to ask him what his concern with refilling the rx was. Then I'd make him talk me through it.
 

1905

Well-Known Member
That is strange because if you take Zofran you are really, really neaseaus. I wonder why he would just stop that. I took Zofran for nausea during chemo. You can't just take something OTC to replace that. He must know how sick you'll be without it. Can you have Tony call him and say you have debilitating nausea and he has to call in something now?
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Could possibly be new medicare/medicaid regulations/directives. I know they're changing.......but I don't know which ones. Could be if he wants them to pay the bill he has to do it their way. Sort of sounds like it. I can't think of any other reason because I don't care how long you're on morphine it does a number on your stomach.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
What ticks me off is the girl on the phone said...what pharmacy? Ok, calling it in now. Then she called me back about an hour later. What if I had left to go to the pharmacy right after I had called her? My pharmacy fills as soon as they are notified. Thats why I chose them. I dont have to wait hours and hours.

And please, what do they think I am going to do, stand on the corner and sell them? The bottle they gave me lasted from summer till now. Or maybe I had one refill on it and so it was 60 pills that lasted me this long. That certainly isnt abusing them. I got them in late June.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
If the nausea is from the morphine, then the pain doctor is the one who needs to rx them. for a reg doctor, who isn't dealing with your pain issues, a patient that keeps having nausea is supposed to be sent to a gastro to rule out serious stomach problems. If the reg doctor gives you nausea medications time and again, with-o doing anything to figure out why you have nausea, then he can be guilty of malpractice. He might see your medication list if he looked at it, but if he hasn't seen you in a while he may assume that the medications have all changed.

I live with almost constant nausea. It has been about a year since I went more than about ten days with-o vomiting. My body does this with or with-o pain medications and has for decades, literally since I was fifteen or so. At this point it is mostly because my first doctor to treat the fibro/whatever issues just kept me on medications that tore up my system and gave no warning that it could mess up y ssytem. Same doctor's neglect of this issue resulted in my mother having the valve on the bottom of her stomach removed. He was really awful, but we didn't know that at the time.

My pain doctor gives me 120 phenergan a month. Yes, that many. And I usually NEED them. They work much better than zofran. If you run out of nausea medications, phenergan and benadryl are VERY closely related. You can take 2 benadryl and it can be helpful if you don't have any other medication that works.

You also might look for a probiotic with digestve enzymes at the store. I use the cheapest one that WM has and it is very helpful with the medication related nausea. not sure why, not sure I care why. I just find it can help.

The doctor who gives you the morphine should give you the medications to control the side effects. I just include the medications that can be faxed on the request for the ones that have to be written and the dr office takes care of it. But they have us asking for our refills over the internet now, and it is awesome. Works very very well. I have been changed to the only female doctor in the practice and I really, really like her, as much as my doctor that left so suddenly. I actually like her nurses better.

Just start acting lke the phenergan is part of the monthly medications to refill.

Several of the docs here want to know what pharmacy regardless of what kind of question you call to ask about. It used to drive me nuts at the big pediatric practice in town. More than half the tme the doctor would rx a medication to handle a phone call but the nurse would forget to send it and then if you called back the system said it was already done and the pharmacy didn't have it and it ended up in a big mess. It was a factor that lead to us finding other doctors to treat our kids. Just because they ask what pharmacy does not mean they are calling something in. They want the info so that IF the doctor rx's a medication it can be called in with-o them having to call you. Irritating, but common.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Well like I told them, I think I get nauseated from various things. Taking the medications on an empty stomach, eating certain foods and it can be different foods at different times so I cant just avoid a food. It can be an antibiotic, it can be lack of sleep, it can be most anything. But its not all the time. It just happens from time to time. Sometimes it happens when I have a really bad headache. Happens a lot when I have a bad headache. Ive been having more headaches lately which is why I really need them more right now. And no Im not getting a MRI. Not unless they send me back up to that place with the upright MRI.

What gets me though is that they offer to make me this appointment with a gastro over the phone but I have begged for a referral for a rheumy for several months and no go yet. They have to do a bunch of blood work before they can do that. They can take up the time of a gastro for a simple prescription that they could write but they cant send me to a rheumy who will rerun the same tests they will do. Idiotic. I mean I dont know why I dont qualify for a rheumy no matter what, I have at the very least osteoarthritis if not something more severe. I believe it is something more severe. And a rheumy should be the one following both the osteo and the fibro. Makes no sense to me. My family doctor wanted to send me to a rheumy back before I had the meningitis but I was trying to figure out why they said I had an outstanding bill with them. I shouldnt have had one. Someone didnt code something right or they charged me for Social Security's visit. However we now have a rheumy in my town so it doesnt matter now.
 

Mattsmom277

Active Member
Ugh, how frustrating. I'm guessing it might well be some billing issue as mentioned. I don't think they have concerns about your usage of it, it is not exactly a "drug" in the worrisome sense, and only has value to someone taking it if they want nausea controlled as you said.

My cousin takes morphine daily for severe osteoarthritis. I don't know her dosage, I do know its one of the time released types and that she has some other milder narcotic for breakthrough pain between morphine doses. She takes Gravol that she can buy cheaply over the counter, she actually buys the store brand/generic type. Do you all have that there? It would seem fairly common. It may not have the same strength as what you get prescribed, I don't really know about the ones you mentioned. But she gets considerable help with the nausea by taking them and they are super inexpensive. They might help while you wait out this referral. I do agree it's silly. I also suspect if you call your pain doctor and mention the issue getting it from family doctor, and that it is a direct relation to morphine, they would start giving it as refills with your pain medications. It's pretty common from what little I know, to need something for nausea when on the type of pain medications you need.
 
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