Every day the Internet is flooded with new users going online and our daily life is having troubles to catch up this digital era. Nowadays there are even options to buy your medication online and send it by post to your house. But will this bring risks or is it save to buy your medication on the Internet?

Buying medication at your hospital or pharmacy already has some risks involved the normal way. You should always check if you got the right dosage and medicine as most errors are made in providing the wrong dosage to patients. Instead of taking a 10mg pill you might be swallowing a 50mg pill with added risks involved. However, buying your medication online will not add the possibility on errors in dosage. The only extra step involved is bringing your order to the post office instead of handing it over to you personally.

Another important issue is that you will need a prescription before you can buy medication online. You will need this prescription from your local physician or your doctor in the hospital. Without a prescription you can not buy your medication on the Internet. So you always have to go the first time to your pharmacist with the prescription to get the process starting.

The big advantage is that when you are in pain, or you are having troubles getting out of the house, buying medication online can be a huge advantage. Instead of going to the hospital while in a lot of pain, your medication is send to your home address.

So although there are some things we should be considerate about, buying your medication in the digital era also has some huge advantages.

With great regret, I have to share this story with you…it’s sad, but very true.

I was at work last night and we had our usual craze between 10PM to midnight (and beyond…yup, I work the overnight shift!). We were trying to sort out an insurance issue for one of our patients in the first lane of our drive-thru (we’ll call her Sally) while another car sat waiting in the second lane. While my colleagues were dealing with the drive-thru patients, I was on the phone with a not so happy patient. Evidently someone was here to pick-up her medications and one of them was not ready…she said the person picking up for her was in the drive-thru in a red Bronco (take note of that last part, it’s somewhat important!)

So, I solved the problem with the upset patient on the phone and had one of my colleagues sell her prescription to the person picking up for her (to the red Bronco guy in lane 2). Meanwhile, Sally ended up coming inside to call her insurance in hopes of solving the problem. Unfortunately her insurance had expired so she ended up taking her prescriptions back (one of which was for Percocet).

We carried on with our work, helping patients as they came along and keeping things straight in the pharmacy. About 30 minutes later, Sally called us and she was a bit freaked out. Apparently, the red Bronco guy (who had been in lane 2 while she was in lane 1) came up to her outside after she left the store and asked her if she had purchased a prescription for a narcotic. If so, he wanted to buy the narcotic prescription from her.

NOTE: Narcotics are prescription medications used to treat severe pain, and they are commonly sold illegally on the street as a recreational drug (gets people high and happy).

The red Bronco guy had overheard the discussion between Sally and my colleague while sitting in the drive-thru. Somewhere in that conversation, the Percocet prescription had been discussed so he knew she was there to pick-up an opiate medication. Even though his business was done at the pharmacy, he stuck around in the parking lot until Sally came out of the store…that’s when he made his move.

Luckily, Sally had not filled/purchased her Percocet prescription - who knows what may have gone down if she had! It is unlikely that Sally would have been hurt, but there have been cases like Sally’s where people have been attacked. Instead, Sally was just freaked out (rightfully so) and wanted to warn us about the red Bronco guy.

Not only can pharmacies be held up, but you can be too - you may have what the bad person wants. If they want your medications badly enough, they may take drastic measures to get them. I don’t want to scare you as it’s rare that something like what happened to Sally would happen to you - just wanted to make sure you are cautious of your surroundings!

If you feel you need more privacy at the pharmacy, please let the pharmacy staff know and I’m sure they will do what they can to satisfy your needs…besides, it is the law!

Has Sally’s situation happened to you before Definitely share your story because I believe that the more cases shared, the more cautious others will be!