Lisa Riste

Im on salt tablets for really low blood pressure - without them I keel over. My nominated pharmacy hasn't been able to get hold of stock - bearing in mind I'm on 6 x tablets a day so 168/28 days. I'm feeling lucky if they have 60 at a time.... It takes a huge amount of 'patient effort' to navigate this. Eventually the request lapsed and they couldn't get anymore so GP had to issue paper script and after 7 pharmacies I found one with 96 in stock - so another owing slip. Im not sure people realise the time implications this has throughout the whole medicines journey? My solution (and please don't try this at home) was to reduce it to 5 per day - plus lots BP checking, then went to 4 per day to try to ensure I had some supply left. I have a BP monitor and had my condition for around 10 years so I know what I'm doing - I couldn't go any lower or my dizzy spells kicked in. I then tried to reorder from GP again - second pharmacy were getting some but dk when. With 7 tablets left.... scarily close to trying to negotiate with hospital pharmacy to get a cardiology prescription for me, I won the lottery and my nominated pharmacy tested to say they had some in for me. Ive gone back to 5 per day to be on the safe side but am OK now til start of April. Daren't even mention HRT patches shortage - only one type I can tolerate due to adhesive allergies.