COMMON SENSE or COMMON CORE?

I’ve been following a FB page called Pseudoscience Quackery and Other Nonsense mainly because I love the name!!  And I usually find them funny.  Funny stuff on a wide range of topics.  I decided to google those two words while trying to think up a catchy title for this blog and learned that distinguishing between science and pseudoscience is problematic (which I didn’t know and I didn’t even understand the word or the definition) thus spent a few hours learning!

pseu·do·sci·ence

/ˌso͞odōˈsīəns/ 

noun

1. a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.

quack·er·y

/ˈkwak(ə)rē/

noun

1. dishonest practices and claims to have special knowledge and skill in some field, typically medicine.

But I really wanted to just rant about the lack of common sense and how do senior adults manage to take the right dosage of the right medicine.  I feel like I need an advocate!

I was prescribed 500 mg ER Metformin for Type 2 diabetes.  After less than one month, Doc wanted to check blood levels again.  NO change, so he upped the dosage to 1,000 mg ER Metformin.  The copay on the two 30 tablet prescriptions was $10.07.  I had just refilled my prescription before Doc prescribed the higher dose, so he had me take 2 per day at dinner.

Our pharmacy has a dial in reorder system and it told me I wasn’t able to refill my prescription for two more weeks BUT if I press 2 they will call the Dr.  I called and talked to a human the next morning and explained that if they call the clinic office, the new higher dose medicine should be started.  Of course, I also called the nurse station to explain.  She assured me she would fax over the new one.

The next day, I was in Safeway and just popped over to the pharmacy.  No, they had not heard back from the clinic.  It was 4:30 pm and I asked him to CALL the doctor as I had only two days worth of medicine left.  I also called the clinic and explained the fax had not been received, would they CALL in the prescription.  The pharmacist called me late that evening to say yes, they had heard back from clinic but they do not stock that medicine and it would be here in two days.  

On the second day, I got the text “your prescription is ready and your copay is $431.70”.  WHAT??  Then would it be prudent to just take two 500 mg pills for maybe $20 a month?  AGAIN, I asked them to call the clinic and I did too.  Since the prescription wasn’t ready by 3pm, I called both the pharmacy (talked to a human) and the nurses station (talked to a human) but nothing happened before closing time.

The next day I got the text “your prescription is ready and your copay is $7.60”.

I picked up the largest prescription bottle I’ve ever seen, filled to the brim with 90 days worth of two 500mg pills per day.  For less than the cost of one pill per day for just 30 days.

Common core math?