A friend of mine wink wink, has been referred to a clinical pharmacist for a medication review.

[Smilesalot]

I'm terrified they will tinker with meds and destabilise my hard fought for stability both physically and mentally.Have any of you any experience with one ?

I would be grateful for your insights🤗

Hugs Dawn

[Bevvy]

I’ve had this a number of times every year. To be honest it is very little to get excited about! Is extremely quick and usually nothing changes. They suggested changing a medication last year I said I didn’t agree and explained why, so things stayed the same! Have been present when my dad had reviews. Again nothing much happened. I view it as a tick box exercise rather than anything serious.

[Smilesalot in reply to Bevvy]

Thank you Bevvy,You have calmed my nerves. And I'm relieved 😌.

It's just with taking 23 meds , that includes inhalers and insulin etc . I got myself all worried as id heard very little of them.

Thank you for taking the time to reply🤗🙂😊

[BenHall1]

Hi,

I have this every 12 to 18 months - no sweat. All undertaken at my surgery, we do a walk through of my medication and discuss each item. Last year a locum GP was involved and I reported a cough, continuous but worsening. We got to Ramipril 10 mg dose and he said come off it for 12 weeks and see how we go. I did this and found the cough significantly eased. (Apparently a side effect of Ramipril can be in some folk - a long term cough ).

I have stayed off Ramipril with only a minor increase in Blood Pressure and am still off it and the cough is virtually non existent - the only trouble is I've now been dignosed with Asthma COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS) which also produces coughing bouts, but, nothing compared to when on Ramipril.

No sweat ! As Bevvy says, nothing to get excited about. Another way of looking at it ( if you are a synic ) its an opportunity for a surgery to cut back on medications issued to patients and thus control their financial budgets !! 😀

[Smilesalot in reply to BenHall1]

Lol, I'm not a cynic, not really it's just I have no experience of them other than other people being displeased with their outcome. Thank you for replying BenHill1

It makes a huge difference hearing other people had no problems with the Clinical pharmacists.

Hugs Dawn 🤗

[Bevvy in reply to Smilesalot]

I have to be honest I am often choosing an appointment with our lead pharmacist (at gp surgery) over my gp these days. He is so knowledgeable and often my queries relate to medications so I don’t hesitate to see him.

[mamahill]

I have a medication review every 6 months from our practice's clinical pharmacist which has happened for the last 6/7 years and initially they wanted to reduce the medication I take. One of which I reduced and the other I increased with no significant pain breakthrough. I had attended a pain management course at St Thomas's in 2017 where they were pushing for us all to reduce our medication as we were told pain was in our head and we should do other things to take our minds off it 🤷.

Listen to what they say but if you don't agree say you'll think on it and stand firm if your present medications are working for you. Please don't worry about it.

[Smilesalot in reply to mamahill]

Omg 😲 I'd have freaked if someone said that to me years back . Today I'm in so much pain I keep leaking tears without realising. Yeah I'm having a flare but my Osteoarthritis in my hips is so bad.

I'm also sensitive to noise and light.

Sorry for my moan. I know many have it much worse

So thank you very much for your reply.

It means a lot that people have responded. Hugs Dawn

[rosewine]

I'm on a lot of medication and have one of these each year. I've actually found the discussions beneficial. They chs get my antihistamine to one that suited me better. We discussed my pain medicamedications and perhaps trying to bring the quantity taken down. He changed one tablet to two 200mg instead of one 400mg which allowed me to drop one easily if I was having a better day. No undue pressure was made to make me changed anything. Hope, this help.

[cyberbarn]

I would agree with listen to them but don't make changes unless you agree.

We have had ones where it has been fine, but two were really dozers. One left a message for my young autistic teen to get weight and have BP taken, which alarmed my son, and then we were given diet sheets telling him to drink more alcohol!

I have a feeling she saw that he was on sip drinks and assumed he was elderly and should just eat calorific food. The list was basically a badly photocopied list of junk food!

Unfortunately for her I was chair of the PPG and with the help of the practice manager, oh boy, did she get a blasting! She did apologise though, and it was taken as a learning experience for her.

Another insisted through a receptionist that I come in for blood tests for a drug I hadn't been taking for over six months. So I did and sat there in front of the nurse explaining why I shouldn't be there for blood tests. I got an apology for that one but not personally.

So some of them are really good, some are so full of themselves they don't bother to read the notes, and some will have learned by their mistakes and be better than they were!

[Smilesalot in reply to cyberbarn]

Thank you for your reply hun,I can't believe they would make such suggestions. That's alarming😮

Love to all on here, hugs Dawn 😍