Sick.. need medicine!

[Nursealc123]

Hey everyone..

im a few months into my states monitoring program, have yet to sign my contract and go through all the what if scenarios. But of course this weekend I've come down with a cold and I feel like crap.. would love to take some NyQuil/Benadryl to stop my post nasal drip but I was told not to take anything over the counter besides ibuprofen and APAP. If I went to a walk in tomorrow AM and got a script for benadryl, NyQuil or some equivalent, would I be able to send these to my program and therefore be in the clear to take them.. or do I need to wait for the okay to use prescription meds. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks so much in advance!

[catsmeow1972, BSN, RN]

Supposedly we can't take any antihistamine with -D attached because of the pseudoephedrine. Ok fine, no sudafed (see earlier post about not being allowed to treat common cold symptoms.) While shackled (psychologically anyway) in that ******** rehab, because the whole place was filled with mold, mildew, dust and god knows what else, I was a total congested snot bag. I complained to their laughable excuse for a clinic and was given, yep, Allegra-D.

My opinion is that it comes back to the stupidly low cutoff levels for drug testing. A couple of Sudafed for transient allergies/cold symptoms is one thing (inform CM, ok fine). If a person is abusing the stuff, levels are going to show it. So logic/common sense would be....oh wait, there I go again.

If this was about advocacy, well....but we all know it's about power, control and the opportunity for miserable people to make other people miserable and make a buck or two...or thousand off them in the process. Complete abstinence from obvious uses of alcohol (one could probably do without the hot toddy for the aforementioned cold) is one thing but complete abstinence from the OTC products that while yes have a chance of being abused (doesn't everything in some manner) if being truly used for symptomatic treatment of a cold, etc. is utterly ridiculous.

And mimifromtx...you've got a nonnurse determining what meds you are permitted to take? Who thinks the CMs that are nurses (or any nurses for that matter) are giving medical advice? Does she not realize that a prescription IS medical advice and her saying NOPE, no can do, IS medical advice, albeit stupid, uneducated medical advice. >>

[SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN]

Yeah,

Cats brings up some good points. The notion that a bunch of social workers, lawyers at the BON and nurses reviewing doctors orders for medical necessity is asinine. I brought this up at our weekly rah-rah ain't monitoring great meeting once and was told I was out of line and not to bring up negative stuff anymore. Also, all these tests have levels in them. Surely the test can tell whether the user took a couple pills for a stuffed head or cooked a thousand of them to make meth. This goes for incidental exposure also. I work in an ER and always try to wash my hands with soap but honestly sometimes forget and use the hand sanitizer which has alcohol in it. So far it hasn't been a problem but I guess it could be. Finally there is the 600 pound Gorilla sitting in the middle of the living room taking a poop. What about the false positive. We have a colleague who tested high positive for alcohol using a test that should not be used as a stand-alone method to determine ETOH consumption. In fact she had a follow up test that confirmed she didn't drink at the levels she is accused of. Will the monitoring Nazis simply ignore the truth? I hope not but I have little to no faith in this system

[Persephone Paige, ADN]

I stopped breathing 40 times during a 1 hour section of a steep study. So, I have to be able to breath out of my nose when I sleep. My choices while in monitoring are to stay awake until I get better or die. LOL. And if I act weird from sleep deprivation, then I get the choice of a booby hatch. Man, what a life. Woooooooo

[Eris Discordia BSN, RN]

I stopped breathing 40 times during a 1 hour section of a steep study. So, I have to be able to breath out of my nose when I sleep. My choices while in monitoring are to stay awake until I get better or die. LOL. And if I act weird from sleep deprivation, then I get the choice of a booby hatch. Man, what a life. Woooooooo

Ironically, if you were at work acting weird from sleep deprivation, all the money in the world says that they would report you for being impaired and even with a clean drug screen, you would be flogged for and accused of using some unknown drug that wouldn't show up in the pee test.

You truly cannot win.