Comments on: How do you handle stepping on someone else's toes?

By: Maggie

Maggie — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 03:08:04 +0000

I suffered a cold last winter, my first in ten years. That's how long I'd been retired and no longer so much in contact with the public. Last winter I was visiting with my daughter's family which includes an early-teenage daughter with MANY visiting friends! While I was raising my family and working (child protective services) and would get a cold, I'd be frantic for anything suggested to relieve the symptoms and also to not pass it on. Last winter, I just kept kleenex handy and a little bag for stuffing used ones in and alcohol handwash, and relaxed as it ran its course. Family agreed I was not 'kissable' for a while. It was miserable, of course, but on the tenth day was about gone. As always. Symptoms and duration were just the same, no worse and no better, than when I fought colds via the pharmacy in days of old.

By the way, I never had a pharmacist recommend stuff like echinechia (sp?) (or anything else, for colds). The pharmacists I met were always the most down-to-earth, blunt and responsive people, and I trusted them often before I did the doctor's office!

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:11:42 +0000

As you say, if the advice is harmless, I'd just let it stand. Sometimes people feel that they have to do something, and the "placebo effect" is never to be underestimated.

On another note, "medical literature" should never be overestimated.

By: RJS

RJS — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:41:55 +0000

Well in that particular case, he recommended it probably a dozen times over the course of two months. Usually in response to "I think I'm coming down with a cold. What should I do?" To which the correct response is "There's nothing you can do, except continue to eat a balanced diet, and get plenty of sleep."

It wasn't so much that he was recommending Airborne as much as the fact that he was a believer.

I think emphasis on reducing workload and increasing sleep so the body can fight off an infection on its own would be far more beneficial than taking a multivitamin. It's difficult to come up with a advertising budget for that sort of thing, though. People want to feel more active, even if it's just smoke in mirrors.

By: The Ole' Apothecary

The Ole' Apothecary — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:33:05 +0000

How likely was it that the pharmacist was giving the Airborne recipient the brush-off because (s)he was busy and didn't have time to go through that familiar ritual of the individual rejecting recommendation after recommendation? These patients want a rubber stamp, not information.

Very few of my customers in my retail days received my studied recommendations, but only because it never traveled, as radio-emdee Dr. Dean Edell says, "from my larynx to his tympanic membrane."

By: greensunflower

greensunflower — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:42:22 +0000

As a migraine suffer, who has been told by many including doctors that they are "psychosematic," please come and tell me that when I am in a cold sweat hugging the toilet with my eyes closed.

On another note, we had a parent treat a child with laryngeal papillomas with airborne. She showed up at the ER in resp distress.

On another note, I am a newbie, so I almost never tell anyone they are wrong.