Given wrong prescription. Son's current condition made much worse.

[Dee16]

My son has been diagnosed with severe anxiety/panic disorder, agoraphobia, ocd as well as other psychological problems that have left him disabled and unable to work full time. His disorder is so severe that despite medication he routinely does things like nervously scratch his head/scalp until it literally bleeds. He was also recently seen by a neurologist after he experienced blurred vision and weakness on one side as well as horrible headaches and after exams and tests he was told he had a mild stroke. Obviously, after hearing this news, his state of mind was made even worse. He was then prescribed a new medication for the headaches/stroke and given a sample in office. The following day, we went to fill the new medicine. After receiving the pills, I informed the pharmacist that the pills did not look anything like the sample and was told repeatedly that it was indeed the correct medicine. My son took the first dose that night and immediately felt dizzy. Upon standing he would almost collapse. He also became very nauseous. We assumed it was because he took the pill on an empty stomach or wasn't quite used to the effects of the medicine. The next morning, he took the second dose (he was prescribed to take them one in the morning and one in the evening) and again, felt nauseous and would almost faint upon standing. At that point we brought him to an emergency room and brought the pills with us. We were told there that the pills he was given were for high blood pressure and when he took them it significantly lowered his, causing the effects mentioned. When approached, the pharmacy admitted to mistakenly giving him someone else's prescription. Due to his preexisting psychological state and finding out about the stroke only days earlier, this has caused him to have what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. Now he has begun to question any medicine given to him for fear that it may be the wrong prescription and his state of mind is the worse it has ever been. Due to this, his psychiatrist has had to up his medicine which has effectively increased the already very expensive prescriptions he has to take every month. We are certainly not sue happy people but we feel like the sheer incompetence of the pharmacist, even when repeatedly questioned about the right prescription has caused my son substantially more suffering and his monthly prescription bill to go up quite a bit. We feel like responsibility needs to be taken and were wondering if anyone has gone through similar events or can offer any advice to us at this point. Would this be considered malpractice? Should I even consider attaining a lawyer?

 

[ecmst12]

Of course, he SHOULD double check every medication he gets to make sure it's the right thing. There are lots of resources out there that can even help him identify by the appearance of the pill, if he doesn't trust the label. It's actually a good thing for him to be vigilant about this stuff.

It was definitely an error but I'm not sure that legally you can tie any symptoms of his pre-existing disorder to 2 days of low blood pressure (which will not have any lingering physical effects).

 

[You Are Guilty]

What state are you in?

Were the "wrong" pills in the "right" bottle (with your son's name on it)? Or were the wrong pills still in the bottle with someone else's name?

And how old is your son?