| lesley153
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Perhaps I should have said Deaf Yoof.
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Got a lovely letter this morning. My surgery has just set up an anti-coagulant clinic. Finger-prick tests, immediate results and prescriptions. Unbelievably convenient, ten times better than going to the hospital - but too late. It was written on the same day my cardiologist said I could come off the Warfarin. Yippee. He said I have to go back on aspirin instead. I can do that.
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And then I had a fun hour in town this afternoon.
Years ago, Jonathan got his first pair of glasses at Boots opticians. Later, a different optician said that the style they'd given him was completely wrong for his face shape... there was nowhere to sit down... There had been seats, but they'd taken them away - presumably to keep the sheep - sorry, customers - on the move, looking at the merchandise. For those and other reasons, I went off them. We started going to D&A, and were happy.
Now Boots have taken over D&A, and the Boots systems have swallowed D&A's systems. My glasses are from D&A, and so are the reading glasses I got last year. I'm quite happy with single vision lenses. I know too many people who have got bi-focals and keep falling up the stairs. The optician would tell me that my prescription hadn't changed, or had only changed a bit, not enough to warrant new specs unless I wanted a change.
I had a eye test in Boots a few months ago. It was busy and I went in more than half an hour late. After the test, the Boots optician asked me if I'd considered bi/varifocals. No, thanks - don't want to fall up the stairs. "No, that won't happen." Jolly good; pleased to hear it. I'm perfectly happy with what I've got. "How about some new frames?" A few days later, they wrote to me because they'd forgotten to get my signature on their form.
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Jonathan had his eyes tested at the beginning of February, and needs a slightly stronger prescription. A month's supply of lenses came a month later. Wrong prescription. I rang them and the girl I spoke to said they were the right strength. I told her the new figures, she checked again. She found the same figures on the D&A records, and nothing at all on the Boots files. Eventually she found the correct figures, she didn't say where or how, and she doesn't know why they weren't recorded.
I took the duff lenses in today. They will order some new lenses, and will ring me when they come in. It would have been nice to hear "we *have* ordered new ones" and "we'll post them to you." We don't always get what we think is nice.
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I then went to the Boots pharmacy. I didn't ask for the aspirin on prescription. It's so cheap, it's hardly worth bothering the NHS for. I can pick up a little box off supermarket shelves anywhere. I went to ask if it was possible to buy in bulk, rather than have dinky boxes containing dinky little blister packs.
One side is prescriptions, and the other side is for over-the-counter. There was one person behind the counter, and a queue of two. They seemed to spend a long time talking through comparatively simple medications, and the second one took even longer because the till crashed. The sales assistant asked a colleague to put it through the prescriptions till.
My turn! at last! hurrah! I said I wanted gastro-resistant aspirins, and wondered if they were sold in bulk, rather than in blister packs. Am I taking any other medication? Yes, but nothing relevant. It's just replacing the warfarin. He needed to check with the pharmacist. No need. My cardiologist took me off warfarin and said start taking aspirin again. "I still have to check." I said it'll be interesting to know if she agrees with my cardiologist. The pharmacist OK'd the aspirin, but said I was better off with the gastro-resistant one than the dispersible ones, and they come in dinky blister packs in cardboard boxes.
Small problem - his till is still down. He waits for it to reboot, says it's nearly there... gives up. "I'll take it to a different till."
Fifteen minutes to spend three quid on some aspirin. I know what I'll do next time I need them. Supermarket shelves, here I come.
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Then I went into Marks and Sparks and bought a supremely comfortable and almost smart pair of cotton trousers, size 14. I'm glad I left the best till last. :)
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Reply #2442. Mar 25 11, 7:26 PM
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| lesley153
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Fifteen minutes in Boots battling a queue, staff shortages and a non-functioning till, and a sales assistant who has to ask permission to do anything beyond breathing, to spend about £3.20 on 56 prophylactic aspirin tablets.
Ten seconds in the supermarket to pick a packet of 28 identical aspirin tablets off the shelves and throw them in my trolley, and pay 83 pence for them. You expect chemist prices to be a bit higher than supermarket prices - but double? |
Reply #2443. Mar 28 11, 4:16 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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Holy crow! I can get 200 Aspirin for one dollar at the dollar store! Sometimes Wal-Mart, too!
Reply #2444. Mar 28 11, 5:21 PM
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Lochalsh 
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VM, caws for celebration?
Reply #2445. Mar 28 11, 5:56 PM
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| lesley153
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I can get 100 dispersible 75mg tablets for 68p from an online pharmacy, or twice that from a different online pharmacy. The ones I bought are "gastro-resistant" and "enteric-coated" whatever that means, and are recommended because I had an ulcer once.
My cardiologist said that a normal aspirin should be OK as I'm taking Lansoprazole... maybe the coated tablets really are better, and not simply more profitable... Think I'll ask my GP.
They're not going to break the bank, whatever I do. Nice to know something that won't. |
Reply #2446. Mar 28 11, 6:27 PM
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satguru
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I've paid up to a quarter of the price for the standard tablets from supermarkets, Wilkinsons winning the prize overall but Tescos pretty good second. It's a waste of money buying any generics from a chemist now if a supermarket has them, just shows how they rip us off. But nothing beats glasses, closely followed by petrol (for the government in that case). But we have nowhere else to get that as the government have set the whole market.
Reply #2447. Mar 28 11, 6:42 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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Caws indeed, Lochalsh! :)
The 'coated' tabs are a bit more expensive, so if that's what you need...I just take the normal 350mg.
Reply #2448. Mar 28 11, 8:43 PM
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Professer
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The coated ones Lesley are supposed to prevent any stomach upsets, is like when i have to go onsteroids i hv the EC ones as the none EC cause me stomach probs.
Reply #2449. Mar 29 11, 5:43 AM
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| lesley153
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I have a suspicion that they're all made by Bristol Labs in Hertfordshire, and the patient leaflets are all identical. Only the packaging varies.
VM, I've been told to take a prophylactic dose of 75mg a day. Is 350mg the normal dose for pain relief?
The people in Boots seemed to be spending a lot of time considering side-effects and drug interactions, but didn't seem to be bothered by the legend on the box: "Do not take these if you have, or have ever had, a stomach ulcer." Unless oesophageal ulcers don't count? I'm not bothered. When I was in hospital, I got dispersible ones dissolved in a tiny bit of water, and I'm still alive. |
Reply #2450. Mar 29 11, 7:05 PM
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bionic4ever
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Lesley, if all they've told you to take is the prophylactic dose of 75mg, then 350mg would be more than you need. (But does 75mg come in coated tablets over there? I don't think it does here.) If you've had ulcers, coated are definitely the way to go. Of course, the only one to tell you all this for certain, though, is your doctor.
Reply #2451. Mar 29 11, 7:43 PM
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| lesley153
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Beth, it does. They're enteric coated, whatever that means, and they're nice and smooth and shiny. Well, as nice as an aspirin can be! They go through the stomach and dissolve in the small intestine. Now, where would I rather have an aspirin-corroded hole - stomach or intestine? intestine or stomach? think I'll buy dispersibles!
You can get them online, even from Amazon! but I don't know if you can get them over the counter. |
Reply #2452. Mar 29 11, 8:09 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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I think a regular aspirin is 350mg, but 75mg is of course, less. A lot of doctors are saying Baby Aspirin is the way to go, but I'm not sure of the mg strength.
Reply #2453. Mar 31 11, 11:01 AM
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honeybee4
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I buy baby aspirins at the dollar store. They are 81mg, exactly what my doctor has prescribed for me to take once a day.
Reply #2454. Mar 31 11, 1:36 PM
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| lesley153
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| I've just thought - "baby" refers to the size of the aspirins, not to the intended recipients - I hope! |
Reply #2455. Mar 31 11, 2:47 PM
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Lochalsh
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I think it's both, ma petite.
Reply #2456. Mar 31 11, 3:54 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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As far as I know, 'baby' refers to childrens aspirin. They are usually pink, chewable, and taste sweet.
Reply #2457. Mar 31 11, 4:51 PM
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| lesley153
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Ooh that's worrying. I thought babies weren't supposed to have aspirin, originally till they were twelve, and then the age was increased to sixteen, because of the link with Reye's syndrome. Medicine is very confusing.
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Went to Tesco for a change on Monday. Shelves in all the shops are splattered with special offer labels - 3 for 2, 2 for 1.5, 2 for 1... Blueberries were £1.80 a punnet, or 2 for £4. There was a member of shop floor staff nearby (how often can you say that?), and he explained that there are "all these" offers, and some of the items cost more than £2. OK, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'll have one punnet for £1.80.
Got home, found I'd paid £2.20, not much money but a 22% mark-up. I rang the shop. What I didn't know was that you can no longer phone a Tesco branch direct, because they can't cope with the volume of calls, poor dears: you get re-routed to a call centre. I got Cardiff, and Gareth.
"How can I help you?"
So I told him about the special offer that wasn't, and the employee who said it was.
"Blueberries, you say? I never buy blueberries, me. Much too expensive. I can't afford blueberries." He also said, eventually, that the employee I spoke to should have taken it to a scanner to check the price for me.
Perhaps he didn't think he needed to, or didn't know he was supposed to, because he had a plausible explanation. (Assuming it wasn't just that he couldn't be bothered.)
"You can take them back to the store, and get an exchange, or a refund."
I don't want a refund, or an exchange (why would I want to exchange them?); I want to eat them, but I want to pay the price I saw on the shelf label, not 20-odd% more.
He's already spent five minutes banging on about how expensive blueberries are, and told me three times that I can take them back for a refund. My question is very simple. I've been overcharged because of misleading price labels. What are you going to do about it?
"What you do now, is you go back to the shop, take your receipt with you, and they will check the prices and the labels, and give you a refund. I will phone the store and tell the duty manager to check."
Hmm, I said, thinking aloud: I wouldn't normally go back this quickly, but I have some dry-cleaning to collect, on Wednesday, from the cleaners next door.
"You have dry-cleaners? You are lucky. I don't have any dry-cleaners where I live."
I tried to imagine how lost Jonnowales and his peers would be if they couldn't get their clothes dry-cleaned.
"Oh they have them in Cardiff, but I don't live in the big city. I live in the valleys, me."
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On Wednesday, I presented myself, the packaging and the receipt, at the Tesco customer service desk.
The woman behind the desk knew exactly what it was about, because she had just that minute pulled the shelf label. She'd walked past the display, and thought that's wrong! In facts, she said, anything that could be wrong, was. The price, the offer, the positions, the punnet weight - everything.
So you noticed as you passed by - you didn't get a call from Gareth in Cardiff?
"No, nobody's rung about this. They very often don't bother passing information along."
Gareth of Cardiff, who lives in the valleys and can't afford blueberries: why do you bother getting out of bed in the morning?
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I picked up my clean jacket, and my very generous refund, and scooted off to the weekly cardiac exercise class. It's mostly men there. Two of the women are friendly and chatty, but there's a coven of five or six who look at me sideways but don't speak to me. I don't know what I've done to upet them, but I'm sure I'll find out, whether I want to or not.
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Then into town, first to the bank (ouch), and then to the clothes shops. I've been wearing short-sleeved, high-necked cotton t-shirts, in lots of colours but mostly red, almost to the exclusion of all else, and trousers that were too loose and I had to keep hitching up. I now have four pairs of trousers that FIT! and a burgeoning collection of tops that aren't short-sleeved, high-necked cotton t-shirts, and most of them aren't even red. Feels good.
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Reply #2458. Mar 31 11, 5:05 PM
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MotherGoose
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Lesley, "enteric" means "pertaining to the intestine". I think one of the reasons why enteric-coated is better is because if you have aspirin in the stomach, and you have reflux, it can burn the oesophagus which does not have a protective lining. The stomach and intestine do have a protective lining.
I wonder how many fools were sucked into buying 2 for 4 pounds (sorry, don't have a pound symbol on my keyboard).
I always check my docket before I leave the store. I must say, however, that my local supermarket has a good track record. I have been shopping there for over 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of times they have wrongly charged me.
Reply #2459. Mar 31 11, 5:31 PM
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| lesley153
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Thank you, MG - I've just realised that I had no idea what enteric meant! Words like enteritis and gastroenterology have just washed over me! That's interesting about aspirin and reflux, because I have not been kind to my oesophagus.
How many? Lots, I bet. How many realised later what had happened? Probably not many. Most normal, tidy, organised, grown-up people get home and put their receipts straight in the bin. Not me. I have receipts going back nearly as far as shillings and pence.
I usually check my receipts, after the till and before I get to the customer service desk, which is near the door. Years ago, I had a free-range chicken double-scanned, spotted it within seconds of paying and walking away from the till, and it took ten minutes for them to put it right. What's the chance of finding two free-range chickens exactly the same price? I do think it would be sensible to make a point of checking every time. |
Reply #2460. Mar 31 11, 6:03 PM
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