BRAUNGIRL

His heart was failing him as he clutched his chest in pain. Tiny beads of sweat dropped from his dark forehead onto the bedsheet followed simultaneously by frothy saliva from his mouth. "I cannot die like this"  he mumbled. Chief Okeke must pay for his crimes. He shifted his somewhat heavy body, gasping for air with each movement.' Nurse Angela was supposed to be here, where had she gone," he wondered in frustration. His aim was to collect the small brown medicine bottle on his bedside cupboard.The label on the bottle was worn out and he could only read few inscriptions on it as the name "......dinitrate". The pain has spread to his shoulder travelling down to his arms. Mustering the last of his strength,  he reached for the bottle which was to be his only saviour and with a shocked and defeated face, he realised the bottle was empty. Nurse Angela was about reviewing the medication charts when her alarm sounded. It was time to visit her patient in

Yesterday was very hectic at the pharmacy, we had lots of prescriptions and refills to dispense. I was exhausted and as soon as it was closing hour,  I zoomed off. Thankfully, the evening shift Pharmacist came early. So, today I was not expecting much prescriptions as most of our regular patients had come yesterday. And it happened exactly as I had thought, just a small number of patients and customers came in. A little boring,  I must say.  It was almost 5pm (about 30 minutes to 5pm), my closing time and I was already getting ready to go home when a young girl walked in and demanded to see the Pharmacist. She would not be more than 20 years old. I ushered her into the Pharmacist consulting room. "What can I do for you? " I asked her.  I need Ampiclox (fixed dose combo of ampicillin and cloxacillin) to flush out 'sperm'. I was confused and speechless for half a second before I regained composure.  Who told you Ampiclox is used to flush sperm after sexua

One of the goals of clinical therapy is to improve patient quality of life, however in some cases more harm is done than good. This is often the case of overtreatment and "too much medicine". overtreatment and polypharmacy "too much medicine " in the elderly with multiple chronic diseases have been shown to contribute greatly to serious negative effects such as adverse drug effects, falls, increased cost, frequent emergency department visits, hospital admission and on very severe cases, death. Older patients with co-morbidities are often loaded with too much medicine which is driven by strict adherence and reliance on clinical therapy guidelines most times.  Most patients older than 70 years old with multiple chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes take upto six or more medicine where some of them are not relevant or are inappropriate. Take for instance,  a study conducted in a rural tertiary hospital in Nigeria by Dr.Fadare and colleagues shows

I was in a sour mood as I walked into my office at the Pharmacy this morning. To be honest, I could not exactly pinpoint why I was not happy, maybe because I didn't get enough sleep the previous night or I missed my usual early morning bus. Well, some days are just like this. Immediately, I sat down in my office, Janet, the pharmacist technician walked in to announce that Mr.Kenneth wants to see me. Oh God! It seems today really will be a bad day. Mr. Kenneth is one of our patients who refills his anti-diabetic medicine with us. The last time,  we spoke,  it didn't end so well. That was three weeks ago when Mr. Kenneth vehemently refused to take his medications even with his FBS value at 12mmol/L and after series of counselling. He claimed he had gotten a herbal medicine from the village which will treat the diabetes and therefore do not need his refills. While pondering on the last encounter with Mr.Kenneth, he walked into my office.  Mr. Kenneth looked unhappy, pale

As a community pharmacist, I see a lot of 'error free' prescriptions and 'not so good' prescriptions. If all things are equal, medicines are grouped into prescription only medicines POMs and over the counter medicines OTC in Nigeria. In simple term, POMS are to be sold with a physicians prescription and OTC can be bought by a patient without seeing a doctor. Unfortunately that isn't the norm here (not good). People work into a pharmacy or perhaps a chemist and buy POMs with no restrictions. Oh well, try and stop them or even refuse to dispense to them, then get ready to be out of business in 2 or 3 months.  As for me, I have set my own rules, I don't ever dispense Opioids and sedatives without a physicians prescription no matter the pressure. If you are not happy with it, it's your choice. On such occasions,  I try to explain to the patients the implications of taking these medicines because you like them or without a physician telling you to take them,