“You can’t do that,” I said, “You will kill this guy.” I had waited for a good five minutes for this nurse in Omaha, Nebraska. She sounded like your mother’s Aunt Eda. Slow talking. Slow responding.
She giggled nicely though. I was expecting a “Whatever!”
“Mister Frasier knows better than to use Nitroglycerin on the [...]
This is a game changer. If they ban the hydrocodone/APAP combinations, that will be the end of Schedule III hydrocodone. JP thinks this would be a good thing. If MDs want to run “Prescription Mills” I want their DEA recorded with each Rx. Here is the whole magilla if you want to read it.
FDA urged to [...]
I was up to my ass in alligators when a heavy set twenty-something woman asked for my help. She was pleasant and waited her turn. I was happy to help her, if I could.
I had a hard time not laughing because she sort of hopped as she walked. Her problem was a broken toe, the [...]
My Fridays have fallen into a pattern, as that is the day of the week when I put in my 12 hour shift in the happy pill room, and after a 12 hour shift, I’m not interested in looking at a wine list, or hearing about how the carmalization of the sauce on some piece of meat the food section of The New York Times has elevated to a status symbol will mix perfectly with the organic fruit dessert flown in this morning from Peru. I just want to get some calories in my stomach and get the hell home. That leaves me one and just one choice in the den of affluenza where I sling the pills these days. Subway. I miss my days in the ghetto where I had a wide variety of empty calorie houses from which to choose and the people were far more interesting, but Subway it was again last week whether I liked it or not. The home of Jared has become part of my Friday night ritual by default.
…..To the jobs that lay waiting in those cities’ factories
They learned readin‘, rightin‘, roads to the north
To the luxury and comfort a coal line can’t afford
They thought readin‘, rightin‘, route 23
Would take them to the good life that they had never seen
They didn’t know that old highway
Could lead them to a world of misery
I mean seriously, just look at this graph. You’d have to be stupid not to realize how much better Glumetza™ is.
You probably don’t even need or want to be told at this point that Glumetza™ is simply an extended-release version of the diabetes medicine metformin, which also goes by the brand name Glucophage. It doesn’t matter. Look at the graph. Glumetza is way better. That’s why the Glumetza® bar is orange and the numbers at the top are way bigger. Because Glumetza® is obviously way better.
Unlike generic immediate-release metformins, Glumetza® uses advanced polymer technology, which provides controlled release of metformin targeting the upper GI system. As a result, more drug enters the bloodstream and less unabsorbed drug remains in the lower GI tract. This may help reduce GI adverse events.
In the clinical trial above, Glumetza® was well tolerated at higher doses. The overall incidence of drug related AEs (adverse effects) was 35% for Glucophage 1500mg/day BID and 33% for Glumetza® dosed up to 2000mg QD.
Less than 1% Glumetza® patients discontinued treatment due to GI AEs in the first week of the study, when the assigned dose was 1000mg/day.
Going along with my previous (and popular) socialized medicine post, I have a solution from the pharmacy aspect that I thought of while reading some responses to it.
You see, we shouldn’t have the folks like Walgreens, Rite-Aid (if they are still around), CVS, and the hundreds of independents profiting off of the pain and suffering [...]
A Bad Hair Crazy Day
Crazy does not mean anti-social. Crazy does not necessarily mean unkempt, unsanitary, offensive or mean-spirited. Crazy is not silly, laughable or entertainment. Crazy is definitely not stupid.
Ever since Ronald Reagan said, “We will no longer warehouse our mentally ill”, the pharmacy is the place where they get the gear needed [...]
Dear drive thru douchette,
If you don’t know how to fucking use a drive thru, don’t use it! Why do we need a 5 minute banter about why you can’t see me and how are you to get a “freaking” prescription filled if you can’t see where I am? Did it not occur to your small brain that perhaps I am using a phone from a remote location to ask you if you want to pick up a rx or drop off a rx TO SAVE SOME FUCKING TIME? Do you see the Mickey D’s teenage employee when they take your order at the big window b/c God knows you go their tri daily! See the big drawer in front of your dumb ass that is too lazy to walk into the store? By some miracle, that actually opens so that you may place your prescription in it. Magical fairies then fly over to sweep the rx from the drawer and little elves run around with their heads cut off to fill your vicodin stat. Whooooo hooooo! Why bitch at me and repeat to yourself “I can’t see you!” Who cares! I don’t want to see you either!
Love,
Filet
That 85% number comes from a poll published in Saturday’s New York Times:
85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt
Fuck yeah. Now we’re talking. We must be about ready to steamroll the last few remaining pathetic bastards defending the status quo and finally make some progress towards joining the rest of the civilized world in ensuring our citizens don’t have to worry about losing their house to foreclosure if they have the rudeness to become ill. Right?
Right?
Not necessarily. Would you have guessed that only 15% of people support the present system? I’m betting not. The right wing is very skillful at the construction of Potemkin villages to make it appear they are far more numerous than they really are. You can do that kind of thing when you control Fox News, The Murdoch newspaper publishing empire, and pretty much the entirety of the AM radio dial. It also helps to shout a lot. There is another level to right wing media though. Publications like the National Review, founded by William F. Buckley to be the flagship of intellectual conservatism. In other words, to serve the people who actually benefit from right wing ideology, as opposed to the white trash mindset that Bill O’Reilly is paid big bucks to whip into a frenzy to think they are better off shunning those dreaded liberals and their sense of fairness.
The National Review recently took its best shot at defending the system that is bankrupting us both individually and as a nation, which isn’t really surprising, since our bankruptcy is by and large their reader’s profit. Gather round folks, and get ready to listen to the extinction cry of those who build their mansions with our blood money.
One gets a better measure of how much countries spend by looking at the real resources used; and by that measure, the U.S. system is pretty good. For example, we use fewer doctors than the average developed country to produce the same or better outcomes. We also use fewer nurses and fewer hospital beds, make fewer physician visits, and spend fewer days in the hospital.
So, next time you go to the ER and get yourself stacked up in the hall waiting to see a doctor for 6 hours, the next time you’re lying in your own urine in a hospital bed desperately pressing a call button that the nurse handling a crisis at the other end of the hall can’t hear, just remember, it’s a sign that the U.S. system is pretty good! I bet the editor of The National Review checks to see which hospital in his area has the fewest doctors and nurses per patient whenever he needs care. I bet he also picks an insurance plan for himself that boots him out of the hospital as soon as possible, because hitting the street in a post-op state where you can barely stand up would definitely be sign you are in a health care system that is pretty good.
Other countries are far more aggressive than we are at disguising and shifting costs — for example, by using the power of government purchase to artificially suppress the incomes of doctors, nurses, and hospital personnel. This makes their aggregate outlays look smaller when all that has really happened is that part of the cost has been shifted from one group (patients and taxpayers) to another (health-care providers). This is equivalent to taxing doctors, nurses, or some other group so that others may pay less for their care.
Critics point to the fact that U.S. life expectancy is in the middle of the pack among developed countries, and that our infant-mortality rate is among the highest. But are these the right measures? Within the U.S., life expectancy at birth varies greatly between racial and ethnic groups, from state to state, and across counties….
All too often, the heterogeneous population of the United States is compared with the homogeneous populations of European countries. A state such as Utah compares favorably with almost any developed country. Texas, with its high minority population, tends to compare unfavorably. But these outcomes have almost nothing to do with the doctors and hospitals in the two states.
Uh-huh. Now those of you out there who aren’t white won’t need me to translate that for you. The honkies amongst you though, may not be used to the thin veneer of subtlety applied here to what they are actually saying, which is:
