Sleep On It

CP: What is a "sleeping pill"?

ME: Well there's no such thing as a "pill" anymore so that's a bit of a misnomer. 

MICE ELF: Yeah, I mean sleeping "tablet" is more apropos. 

CP: Yes. We all know this. My question is phrased using the patient vernacular, not the professional one since this is how we receive queries phrom patients. So. . . ?

ME: A tablet that helps you fall asleep. 

MICE ELF: Like a Kindle? How about a medication designed to bring about drowsiness; a soporific, if you will. 

CP: Yes. Our interpretations of "sleeping pill/tablet/draught or soporific" are all the same. I used to believe everyone used these words to convey the same meaning; I discovered I am wrong. 

ME & MICE ELF: How so? 

CP: Yes. Apparently, it took the phollowing conversation to show me how wrong I have been all these years. 

 

Pt: I need my sleeping pill refilled. 

CP: Okay. What's the number or the name? 

Pt: I don't have the name; it's the one I take for sleep. 

CP: You mean the Ambien we filled last week?

Pt; Yeah. No. My doctor said that you gave me the wrong one. 

CP: But you do take Ambien, yes?

Pt: Yes. But my doctor said you gave me the wrong one; there is another. 

CP: You sounded like Yoda to Obi-Wan: "No. There is another". Do you know the name of this "other" sleeping tablet?

Pt: No. 

CP: I'm not seeing anything for sleep. 

Pt: It's for my restless legs. 

CP: Oh. You mean the carbidopa-levodopa? The Sinemet? 

Pt: That's it!

CP: No. It's not it. While it may help with your RLS and thereby allow you to sleep without twitching like my frogs in dissection lab, it is in no way ever considered a "sleeping tablet". 

Pt: But it helps me sleep. 

CP: Just because something helps you sleep does not make it a "sleeping tablet". Red Bull may give me wings, but in no way am I a pilot. 

 

ME: That's as bad as the people who cry "Do you know how important this medication is? Do you?"

CP: Nope. Please, educate me in the ways of the medication oh great "random-taker-of-something-someone-told-you-to-take-for-some-reason-you-are-misremembering". Please, educate the drug expert on drugs. I bet you explain to your plumber how to fix your toilet too, huh? 

MICE ELF: You're doing it wrong!

CP: I want to visit these people where they work.

#Confounded

#KnowYourMedicine 

#DontCorrectMeWhenIExplainWhyYouTakeThisMedication