Power in Pharmacists

Weary of calling a doctor who doesn’t return your phone calls regarding medication? Or how about those doctors who give you little to no information on a medication's side effects?


Well, here’s perhaps the best-kept secret. An arsenal of medicine-know-how lies at your fingertips – literally. All you have to do is phone a friend – your local pharmacist.


Sure you can do research on the Internet and opt to read the yada yada medical lingo inserted in medication packages, but really, why bother?


Not only can a pharmacist explain the side effects of a drug, for example, off the tip of his or her head, one is available 24/7.


As part of the cancer community, I have had an enormous number of prescription drugs -- from medicines that help combat the side effects of cancer treatment to supposedly cancer-recurrence preventing medicines. Even some of the best doctors in the world do not always give a complete picture of how a drug can affect you.

Enter the pharmacist. He/she is an excellent resource to all things Rx.  

For example, I was taking a medication to prevent a breast cancer recurrence. I had no idea how detrimental the medication was to my bones until they hurt so much, that I often found myself prostrate on the floor crying.

Every body movement was agony. 

The doctor took me off the medication, but it was a pharmacist who originally warned me when I started it that I might have bone pain. That's how I knew that the intense pain I felt was due to the medication. And that's how I knew to immediately tell my doctor about its adverse side effects.

A couple of years after my double mastectomy with reconstruction, a doctor prescribed a medication to help alleviate the residual pain. The physician didn't tell me the side effects, but a pharmacist did, upon my asking. He told me that it could cause problems with my circulatory system.

I told him to forget about filling it, saying, "My gosh! I've had cancer and problems with my bones, not to mention my reproductive system and who knows what else chemotherapy damaged?! The one thing that's going right for me right now is my circulation, so I'll just bear with the pain."

I'm not suggesting you refuse to take needed prescription medications; I'm just saying that having more complete information about these medications is a good idea so that you have the power of choice.

A pharmacist knows drug information intimately, and every time I have called a pharmacist to double check on a medication, he/she has known such information through rote memory and logic. That’s why he/she specializes in medications.


Even if you have the most competent of physicians, you might as well double-check with a pharmacist. In the case of doctors who don't get back to you regarding medication side effects, this professional can become your best friend.

Have you had any instance(s) where doctors did or did not inform you of a medication's side effects? I am eager to hear your experiences.

This posting is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Calling the Shots: Coaching Your Way Through the Medical System. To obtain these excerpts regularly, please subscribe to this blog by clicking the orange subscribe button. I am a professional writer and have published numerous academic and magazine articles, as well as an essay on my breast cancer experience in the anthology Voices of Breast Cancer by LaChance Publishing. I can be contacted at bethlgainer@gmail.com and gainercallingtheshots@gmail.com.