Pill packets suck

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Specializes in ER.

I'm getting fed up with pill packets. The serrated separating lines are not as well made as before, some brands make it impossible to tear away one pill for a patient without scissors.

Then, once you get it away you either have to peel away the wrapper or pop it out the back. Peeling off the wrapper is often challenging. Sometimes the glue is too strong or the little corner you're supposed to grab is microscopic.

Sometimes you think you're supposed to pop it out the back but that wrecks the pill. There was really a microscopic corner you were supposed to somehow peel back.

Argh! :arghh:

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attachment.php?attachmentid=24548&stc=1These are the bane of my med pass existence...statin foil blister packs that wouldn't open or tear along the perforation if you dropped an A-bomb on them.
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Specializes in Neonatal Nurse Practitioner.

:dummy:Come to NICU!:dummy1:

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The only thing worse than the pill wrappers are the darn IVs where the fluids have to be attached to a vial of powder and then mixed. I remember the good old days when pharmacy would preattach them for us.

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How many times have you finally managed to get the packet open only to have it pop and the pill goes flying?!!! Grrrrr

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How many times have you finally managed to get the packet open only to have it pop and the pill goes flying?!!! Grrrrr

And to top it off it's a narcotic, so you are frantically trying to find the thing on the floor where it rolled off to...why do they make dilaudid so small??? Why are SO MANY patients on PO dilaudid???

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Ugh I hate handing patients their cup with the shattered remains of morning meds. I'll say I know you didn't need this crushed but the packaging is impossible.

Once I told a man if he needed whatever I was opening in a crisis he probably wouldn't make it. Thankfully he found my struggle hilarious. I think it was loading dose Plavix

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Specializes in Critical care.

Those darn colace pills are always hurting my thumb when I pop them out- the skin under my nail always pulls away and bleeds because the packet is so deep (if that makes any sense).

The freaking Xanax is impossible to get out without breaking most of the time. I ended up in the urgent care side of my hospital's ED for a back spasm one day and was given Xanax. The pill was broken (just like I gave to patients so many times) and bleh it tasted horrible and left a horrible lingering taste! I've been super careful trying not to break them after that.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

The good thing was that I was able to grow my fingernails as I was a chronic nail biter, and my thumbs were my PRIME targets.

I always had problems with fentanyl patches - they were the worst to me. Good thing that 7-3 usually did them, I only had to do replacements.

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I know a nurse who uses a wand-style staple remover to open her meds. It works great!

I once had a psychotic patient chase me down the hall because I broke her Ativan trying to get it out of the package.

Trying to get Omega 3 out of its deep tight pocket is maddening!

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Specializes in OR.

And then there's when you are doing med pass and AFTER you've undone and given the 15 different morning meds and the stupid system tells you that one of the scans did not take. Now you are standing in front of the patient rummaging through a pie of torn paper bits hoping to find that one med among them and also hoping you did not tear the bar code so badly that you cannot piece it together well enough to make it scan.....Urrgghhhhh!!!!

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Specializes in Critical care.

There were certain meds that were so hard to get out of the Pyxis because you couldn't tear them apart that I finally just started cutting them all up when I'd go to pull one of them. I figured that'd be a nice gift to my coworkers :) but I'm sure pharmacy hated me ;)

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