From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2003-06-02 17:06:40 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] RE: What can it be.: new thread on where to find
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
concentrations
Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.44+UNC.0306021244540.34224-100000@login0.isis.unc.edu>
> So, new thread: does anyone know of a useful website(s) with
> concentration information for the standard pharmacy (not compounded
> specially) liquid meds, prescription or OTC?
It's a little tricky since you have to be so careful that you're looking
at the right thing, but:
http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/brand.htm
can work. You find the drug you want, and then the site's default view is
for the drug's side effects. Near the top of the screen, they have a link
to "description/brand" that usually has the concentration. Again, you
have to be really careful.
My favorite site for drug info is in MedLine plus from the National
Library Medicine, but the entries usually don't have the concentration.
But the site is http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html
Here's my story for why I am FANATICAL about knowing the concentration of
any drug I'm giving my ferrets. If it's not on the label, or if anything
is different than I was expecting, I make sure I talk to the pharmacist
who actually filled it.
So. I'd been using brand-name Pediapred for a long time, and the pharmacy
always sold me the actual bottle, with the manufacturer's original label
including the concentration on there. Pediapred is a brand name of
prednisolone. One reason it tastes good is that this form is a pretty low
concentration of the actual drug - around 1 mg per ml. It's also
alcohol-free.
One day I go in to pick up a refill. Rather than the usual brand-name
bottle, they give me a plastic bottle with the pharmacy's label on it.
The label has no concentration but says "Pediapred - prednisolone sodium
phosphate". I asked about it (they were busy) and the person at the
counter said that some pharmacists simply like to pour meds out of the
bottle they came in and into a bottle from the pharmacy. Or maybe they
only had a bigger bottle than usual and poured my amount off. I thought
that was weird since it had never happened before, but shrugged, took them
at their word, and went home with the stuff.
I noticed that it was a different color than the usual Pediapred I had
been giving them. It was pink; the regular Pediapred had been clear. I
tasted it, and it was definitely different - very much a sharper flavor.
Long story short, when I finally got in touch with the pharmacist who had
dispensed it, he said that they had been out of the brand-name Pediapred
and had used a generic prednisolone or another brand (can't remember).
BUT the important thing was that this stuff was quite a bit more
concentrated than the brand-name Pediapred. It was 15 mg per 5 ml, or 3
mg per 1 ml. Three times more concentrated than what I had been using!
They had not changed the dosage info on the label, and they had not placed
the concentration on there either so that I could have easily figured it
out for myself.
Argh! I changed pharmacies after that and a couple of other dramas...
I'm always careful to have a "no generics, no substitutes" note in my
pharm records for the ferrets' Pediapred...
Sorry for the long story, but the moral is to be really careful with
concentrations and generics/brand names, etc!
Best wishes,
-Pam S.