Paracetamol on prescription

There ought to be a system whereby you could buy them in larger quantities, with a doctor's note.

Is it the case that if a patient presents a prescription for an item that could be bought for, say, £1.20 over the counter, the chemist is still paid £8.20? That's as I understand it but I may be wrong.

As I am 65, I am exempt from prescription charges. However, I would not accept a prescription to get things like pain killers, throat tablets, creams, etc. I would buy them myself. If I needed these things on a regular basis and in substantial quantities, I think it would be reasonable, and probably sensible, to get them on prescription.

A friend of mine, a retired pharmacist, was very saddened by the excessive number of prescription items that were brought back to the chemist, unused. They have to be destroyed. And no doubt most unused items don't get returned to the chemist. Perhaps people should be made more aware of the huge cost to the NHS and the need to behave responsibly.

I think there are far more important reasons why the NHS is seriously struggling, but if someone can afford and is willing to buy some one-off over-the-counter items it is a way of reducing costs.

There are limits on the numbers of painkillers that can be bought in one go, but that is easily circumvented by going to several chemists - more difficult, I know, if a person is living in a rural area.

Paracetamol is on my repeat prescription list. I have never given it a thought. There are lots of prescribed medicines that are also available OTC.

DH is on daily multiple dose of paracetamol for pain and I think it quite reasonable to pay for it. Despite the limit on buying only 32 at a time I have no problem keeping him stocked out.

I deliberately shop in Waitrose because it has town centre stores. It means I can do all my shopping/banking/ hair appointments etc etc in one trip, so once I have bought paracetamol at Waitrose with the groceries I nip into Superdrug, Boots and an independent chemist all within a couple of a hundred yards of each other and come home with 128 paracetamo lwith no problems.

There ought to be a system whereby you could buy them in larger quantities, with a doctor's note.
Good idea jings. The main reason I had them on prescription was because of the limit on purchases.

Yes Luckygirl. Boots do their own version of a drug I have to take regularly. But it is in tablet form, not capsule, and the fact is it does not work as well as the prescribed version. And it's a darn sight more expensive than paracetamol.

I refuse Gaviscon Advance on prescription. I buy it, and that is expensive.

Good idea jingl

The NHS prescribing budget is exceeded massively every year but the thing that annoys me most is that so much of this is wasted. A significant number of people get a prescription for whatever it is and decide to not to take it. Even if you take unused meds back to the pharmacist they cant be re-dispensed and are destroyed. The issue for me then is that patients should have what they need to manage their medically diagnosed condition and should adhere to their clinicians instructions - if there is a problem then that is requires another consultation. As a DN I regularly cleaned out the stockpile of all manner of drugs, potions and lotions from patients' cabinets when they died (at the relatives request) to return to the pharmacy for them to be destroyed. As a hospital nurse people came in with bags of meds they weren't taking.

It is not just people not taking drugs that leads to drugs being surplus and destroyed. Sometimes several drugs have to be supplied before one that works is found. DH was prescribed three different drugs in three consecutive weeks in order to help control his pain. The first two were ineffective. The third is working. The unconsumed parts of the two previous prescriptions have been returned to the pharmacy.

Pharmacies have to destroy returned drugs in case of tampering. #stateoftheworld

Have any of you ever tried to get a prescription reduced? I was supposed to take something twice a day and kept forgetting the evening one and ended up with quite a stock. I asked the doc if it was OK for me to just take one a day and he agreed. I told the pharmacist I did't want any more for a while and explained why I had such a stock. They kept being put in the bag each time but I didn't notice until I opened it at home so kept adding to the stock. It was eventually sorted after several months but when I finally told them I had used up my stock and wanted them again that caused a lot of fuss as well and it is an ongoing issue which still hasn't been resolved.

I think one of the reasons for them to be prescribed is that any doctor / pharmacist can see you are taking them and know not to prescribe something else with paracetamol in as an overdose is very bad for you. I had them prescribed last year and the doctor wanted to know why I wasn't using a repeat on them. When I told her they were cheap to buy she told me off as she wants to know what I am taking.

Paracetamol is of course highly toxic even in small overdose. I saw one poor young man recover from a paracetamol overdose, only to die slowly from liver failure over the next few weeks. So that is why they only allow you to buy a few at a time.

The wastage of drugs is not good, but I do not know what can be done. I have a drug here that was prescribed for migraine and made me so ill that I had to rapidly stop it. I have a month's worth of it here, which will be destroyed, as they cannot take any risk that it has been tampered with. I do not know what the answer is - maybe to prescribe a smaller amounts to see if it suits.

Until the end of last year I was prescribed paracetamol on prescription for Fibromyalgia. Then I was told it would no longer be on prescription from my surgery and I would have to buy it myself. I take the full dose of 8 a day, and buying it is a real pain. If I am lucky the pharmacist will sell me three packs of 32, but it means I need to explain myself every time. I also buy my own Ibuprofen. I do not mind paying for these things, they take the edge off my pain.

It's a bit of a mockery though, when you can call at, say, Boots, Waitrose and Lloyds Phatmacy in one shopping trip, buying more as you go.

I don't think a small overdose would do you that much harm. TBH.

I was prescribed 200 a time on prescription. So I now enlist the help of two friends who each order 2 packets of sixteen on their online shop, as I also do. I am not able to frequently visit a Pharmacy. It does make things difficult, but I have to find a way through. A Pharmacy crawl is one answer,but I sadly do not have the energy for that. Yes, I really rattle!!

I take my own Paracetamol into hospital and clear it with the nurses if I need it, as I can only take capsules, which are more expensive, though still pretty cheap, and tablets are usually what is prescribed. I stock up when shopping with the allowable amount.

It is a common misunderstanding that paracetamol is safe in small overdose - it is not. The margin between safe and toxic is quite small.

"Paracetamol is a nasty drug. You may poison yourself by mistake, but by the time you start feeling unwell you may be approaching the end of the (roughly) three-day window in which the antidote, acetylcysteine, can save you. Would-be suicides may take a handful of pills expecting to drift into a pleasant sleep, only to find that nothing happens. By the next day they may well have changed their minds about killing themselves – but it's too late: the drug, by then, is already doing its best to destroy their liver." - this is what happened to the lad I mentioned above. He regretted what he had done, but the clock could not be turned back. It was harrowing.

So don't deviate from the stated dose please! - and if you are forgetful (like me) then it is best to note down when you have taken them.

I agree Luckygirl. You have to be careful with paracetamol dosage. It can build up in the liver and cause irreversable damage. And also be aware that cold remedies also contain paracetamol. I list the times I take my tablets each day, my brain cannot be relied upon to remember.

One problem that arises is that people take paracetamol when they have say a cold, and then take some other remedy as well, unaware that this too contains paracetamol.

And some people seem unaware that the maximum dose is 8 per day and carry on taking them every four hours. I have heard of someone dying after taking just one more dose daily over a period of time.

I also remember reading about that a few years ago Ana. It underlines the warnings regarding sticking exactly to the permitted dose of paracetamol.

Nothing is as simple as one first thinks is it?
I have prescription soluble co-codamol as it is the only one which does not have maize starch or a derivative as the filler. I have a bad reaction to the cheapies and you can't buy the ones I can take OTC. If you need it then you need to have it.
I look after myself with natural stuff wherever I can so do not feel any guilt whatsoever.