Just need to rant quickly here.

[Pab Sungenis]

My mother contracted Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion back in the 1980's. She has acute liver damage, but has been managing it.

A while back she had a minor cardiac incident, and her doctors prescribed baby aspirin to help avoid another one.

Yesterday she got a letter from the pharmacy. It seems that due to a screw-up they've been giving her high doses of Tylenol instead of her baby aspirin.

Tylenol, even in normal doses, can be deadly to someone with liver damages. And they've been pumping her full of it like there's no tomorrow.

Sorry to interrupt the political bloodshed on here with something like this, but I just needed to rant to someone.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. That is pretty shitty. Sorry. Hope she recovers.

Hepc is pretty horrible, but there has been a lot of progress on treatment. All boomers should get tested.

[Pab Sungenis]

3. If the pharmacy hadn't fessed up

they might have gotten away with it, too. No one would have questioned why her liver panels were getting worse, assuming the disease had just progressed further.

[n2doc]

2. That sucks

Hope she didn't get any damage. It seems amazing that the pharma could make that big a mistake.

[Fla Dem]

4. So sorry for your Mom, hope there are no long term issues.

I take baby asprin ( low dose), but they are otc, don't need to have a pharmacist to dispense them.

[Pab Sungenis]

7. She had them prescribed

because they they would be covered under her insurance and be cheaper than OTC.

[DLevine]

5. That happened to my mom, as well.

I don't know the details, but she was telling me about this on the phone a few days ago. This was evidently not a pharmacy screw-up. It must have happened before it got to the pharmacy.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. That's terrible

I don't consider myself excessively litigious, but if this happened in my family, I would be seeking legal counsel.

Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention. Acetaminophen is indeed bad news for anyone with liver damage - a fact that often gets glossed over when Big Pharma pushes pills and downplays dangers inherent to medications which can be obtained over-the-counter. Many people have concluded that OTC preparations are not 'real' medicine, so it's alright to take larger doses over a longer-than-recommended period of time. In the case of acetaminophen, that can cause liver damage - even if none was present beforehand.

[LuvNewcastle]

10. I agree, they need a lawyer.

Everybody should be careful with acetaminophen. I would think that a person who has liver damage shouldn't be taking it at all; I know I wouldn't risk it if I had hep C. Some of our OTC drugs are more dangerous than some prescription drugs, when taken in high doses. For a pharmacy to confuse one drug for another, as in this case, can be a deadly mistake and they need to answer for that. I would definitely change pharmacies.

[Mariana]

11. I wonder how many people who die

from overdose of prescription painkillers are actually killed by acetominophen toxicity, rather than by the narcotics. Many prescription painkillers contain high doses of acetominophen combined with a rather small amount of narcotic.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. If you took too many Loritabs or Norco, I think

the acet. poisoning would be worse than the hydrocodone. I'm not a pharmacist, but I have a lot of experience with taking painkillers. I think the main reason doctors prescribe Loritabs and other medicines like it is because they're relatively easy to take someone off of, and most people only take pain meds for short periods. People who take pain meds long term do better with morphine pills or something similar.

[Chan790]

8. I'd get a lawyer.

Not because there's the likelihood of a payout here from lawsuit but because you're entitled to a far fuller explanation of how the hell this happens than you'll ever get without one and more than a carefully-worded form letter. Also, people always bust on personal injury lawyers because of those huge judgements they win, but those judgements go a long way to insuring those things never happen again. This needs to not happen again and the person responsible needs to be accountable.

No problem with the ranting...I'd be furious if I were you.

[Pab Sungenis]

9. She has one.

That was the first thing she did, call the lawyer.

This is a major national chain pharmacy we're talking about. (Yeah, like there are any mom and pop drug stores left.) If this mistake could happen in one store, then it could happen in every store across the country. They need to review their policies and procedures pronto.

[freedom fighter jh]

13. I wonder what chain.

Are its initials R A?

Some years ago, I was on anti-depressants. Early in the course of the drug, I caught a cold, couldn't sleep because of the coughing. Careful person that I am, when I got my prescription filled I asked the Rite Aid pharmacist if I could take Robitussin while on the antidepressant. No problem, he told me.

I did. The next morning I could not get out of bed. I just kept rolling over, resolving to get up but always going back to sleep until finally I managed it mid-morning.

At my next check-in, the psychiatrist told me it was the drug combination that had kept me in bed; it could easily have killed me.

My mother was a pharmacist, a good one who often came home from her hospital job with stories of bad combinations of drugs that doctors had prescribed and she had stopped. I felt her roll over in her grave.

I'm sorry about your mom's experience. From the little I know about Tylenol and liver issues, if it was going to harm her I think you would know pretty soon. So it sounds like she dodged a bullet. Like I did. Maybe I should have sued. Maybe that would have made them more careful.

[Pab Sungenis]

15. I don't really want to mention the chain here.

But it's one of the big three in the northeast. And not the one you hinted at.

I went to college in a town near where she lives. She fell in love with it and eventually moved up there. 20 years ago there were four mom and pop pharmacies in that town, and I knew the people who ran two of them. Your pharmacist used to know everything about you, and could dispense good advice.

Since then Wal-Mart opened outside town and the Big Three squeezed out the little drugstores. They're all gone. Same thing happened here in my home town.

[Skittles]

20. was it this?

ihttp://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/06/28/aspirin-recalled-over-acetaminophen-mix-up/

[emmadoggy]

14. Wow.

There is no excuse for that. I've worked in a pharmacy. I don't know how on earth they would have done that.

I sincerely hope that your mom doesn't end up with more serious damage because of this horrendous mistake. I hope you can get some answers.

[matt819]

16. Question

Why is this a prescription issue?

Low dose aspirin is available OTC, generic brand, costs little and everything is transparent - you have control of what you buy and use. I've had pharmacists tell me that a particular product is available OTC and to buy it that way instead of via an Rx.

[Pab Sungenis]

18. See reply #7.

Cheaper the way it worked out between Medicare and whatever her current private plan is.

[winter is coming]

17. That's terrible. So sorry for your mom.

[mitchtv]

19. Wow, sorry for your Mom

having had a liver failure/transplant , I am used to the retrictions and knew someone with a tylenol caused transplant. All best wishes and I hope she improves quickly