Cymbalta Withdrawal Due to Walgreens Incompetence

i HAVE LOWERED MY CYMBALTA DOSE TO 30 MM i WANT OFF THIS MED. i CANOT
GET OUT OF BED wHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN I STOP COMPLETELY??

Yes, Walgreen's dropped the ball and I can't blame you for switching
pharmacies, but if you are taking a medication that you can't do
without, you can't afford to cut it that close. For your own sake,
you've got to expect the unexpected, have a back-up plan, cover your
a**.....you know what I mean? It is up to you to manage your illness
so that events such as this one are inconveniences rather than crises.

I patronize Wallgreen's in Lake Forest, CA and have nothing but
wonderful things to say about the pharmacists. Every once in a while
they are only able to partially fill a prescription and I have to go
back a couple of days later at which point they retrieve what is owed
me from a special drawer. Knowing how businesses operate, I certainly
wouldn't wait a month to go back to get the remainder of the rx and am
of the opinion that it is my responsibility to ensure that I don't run
out of my medications.

I can't really speak to the actual events here, but there are a lot of
ways a consumer can avoid going without their meds.

You can pay out of pocket and then work to get reimbursed. Yes, it's
expensive, but if you really need it, it's an option. You can call
your MD's office, explain the situation and see if they either have
some samples to give you or can call in a supply for a few days until
the mess is sorted out. Then there's always the option of not waiting
till the last minute, as several have mentioned.

Given the very caustic language in this letter, I suspect strongly
that the caustic language was also lobbed across the counter to the
Pharmacist and the Pharmacy Techs. How many times during the
interaction did you say "incompetent?"

"4 days later, another trip to Walgreens, when the Pharmacy Manager
was working, I was able to get the 29 pills they OWED ME. Fortunately,
the Pharmacy Manager COULD count and could actually do simple math
such as addition and subtraction! Imagine my surprise!"

Comments like these should be removed from the letter. The issue
wasn't whether or not the technician could count but whether or not
the OP received the entire prescription the first time.

Sarcastic remarks in a business letter are unprofessional. I hardly
think the OP would want Walgreens' reply to include this type of
verbiage.

WEll, if you can post this twice, I can respond twice.



Yes, they handled this quite poorly, but you bear some responsibility
for managing your own health. Why wait until you were out of pills to
get the rest of them? Why take a chance that they could be out of the
pills again?

Also, it's hard to sympathize with you with the snotty attitude in
your letter, not to mention the ridiculous assertion that you'd die
before returning to that pharmacy. It leads a reader to believe,
however right or wrong, that your attitude that day at the pharmacy
didn't help matters.

I switched from CVS to Walgreens becuase of something simular.
Walgreens Pharm Tech said that I picked up a Rx that I did not. It
was filled, but I never picked up. They swore up and down that I HAD
to have picked it up as it was dispensed and not on the shelf. It
took them 2 days for them to figure out that they were wrong. Those 2
days cost them my business. I said I would not go back and I have
not.

I also recently switched from Walgreens to Target. Mostly just
because I happned to be there when I needed a RX filled and found them
so friendly and fast.

Why did you wait until you ran out of your prescription to go pick up
the pills that were due to you? It is much easier to deal with this
situation - an incomplete prescription - if you do it in a more timely
manner. Much less time for the parties involved to forget what is
going on. I would say that a big part of the blame falls on you.

Your experience is one of the reasons why I, as an Asst. Mgr of a
Walgreens store, volunteered to work as a permanent 3rd shift
assistant (I don't have to put up with the number of issues like yours
which are clearly the fault of the pharmacy). In recent years I've
seen the level of incompetency from our staff pharmacists rise. This
has been due to the rapid expansion that Walgreens has undertaken.
The number of uncaring, incompetent pharmacists that Walgreens has had
to hire just to keep running the pharmacies has risen to new levels.
Management is often caught in the middle of such experiences of yours
and we can't do too much about it since 99% of us don't have a
pharmacist's license.

My apologies to you and I don't blame you from wanting to stay away
from Walgreens. However, each Walgreens is different based on whether
or not they got lucky enough to get caring, competent pharmacists. The
pharmacy manager should not be the only staff pharmacist who knows
what they are doing in a store.