WRONG!!!!
So the other night, I stood there transfixed by the drug selection at the Boots Pharmacy (Rite Aid, CVS, etc). Only one brand - Vicks - was familiar. So after reading the labels on a few of them and realizing that NONE of them - not even the Vicks - had any drug cocktail that I could recognize, let alone pronounce!! Then there was a whole new world of potential symptoms that I could choose from to be relieved of:
chesty cough
sluggish head
stuffed head
achy bits (they use the term bits over here for everything!)
raspy throat
sore throat - yes!! I know that one!! that’s what I have!!
feverish body ...huh?
blocked nose
runny nose - this one I did obviously recognize, but I didn't think runny was a real word!
Then the list of what the drugs could cure was no less confusing;
productive coughs
clear heads
cooling off...yeah - what? I'm not buying a gun! I have a cold!
clear head
stopped nose
Yeah - this is what I had to choose from - and the look that is on your face - that was exactly how I looked, only I looked a bit more pathetic because it was raining and my nose was all read cuz it was runny and I was blowing it...and lets just say that with the headache I had as well, my patients wasn't at an all time high to be trying to play Sherlock Holmes with the meds - just give me drugs!!
So once I had a pretty good idea of my symptoms, and what I wanted relieved, then it was on to ingredients checking. The most common drug found in almost all of them was Guaifenesin and Paracetamol.
Where is Goggle when I need it?!?!
Since these mean nothing to me, then I went looking for the warning...
Apparently the alerts here are more in gear with the London lifestyle....
Nothing about operating machinery or driving (no one here drives - we all take the tube)
No excessive drinking....huh? Does that mean take your chesty cough meds with a little liquor but not a lot? What’s their classification of a lot? I don't think I want to know what an Englishman really thinks a lot of drinking would be...especially when their on drugs for a fevery body!
And here is the one that really got me....
Do not take this product with any other similar products....excuse me?!!? Can we get some clarification here? Do you consider all cough meds similar? Can I take throat lozenges with the cough syrup? Is that similar? What happens if I take similar meds? Did we not think to put the consequences on the box only the warning?!?
I just want some Nightquil and Dayquil!!! Is that too much to ask?!?!
Everything they had - and I mean EVERY SINGLE THING - was the non drowsy formula!! What’s up with that?!!?
'Hey, Tif...why didn't you ask the pharmacist?" I know that is a question that is on your mind....it was one of my first thoughts as well.
But to put it nicely, the "pharmacist" had pink hair and was younger than me...young enough like I think her mom dropped her off at work young....and she didn't speak the queen's English so well...or any other form of English....or any guttural sounds that I could maybe think might have been mumbled English!!!
This was not going so well....
So in hopes of not ODing on some foreign drug, I grabbed the Vicks that toughed relief from chesty coughs, achy parts and hurting heads. It had the drug that started with the P but not a lot of it, so I figured it was a good place to start.
It’s Vicks - it said GlaxoSmithKline on the box - how bad could it be?
Not bad at all....but not good either!!! It was basically honey flavoured children’s strength cough syrup! That’s a rip off!
So come to find out (after googling it the minute I walked in the door) Parawhatever that I mentioned about is basically Acetamitaphin...aspirin!! I could have take aspirin and gotten the same effect! How does aspirin cure chesty coughs?!?!
So I suffered a little through the night...that was Wednesday night.
I get to work on Thursday and I can only assume I wasn't looking my best. "Oh dear! Are you OK to be here?" Asks my boss.
Hmmm....I thought I was actually looking better, but apparently I misjudged that in my stuffed head state.
"Here," she says as she hands me a packet of pills, "these are quite lovely for a cold."
Ok - it’s my boss. the pills were in a little punch cards thing - like in the states - not label, but they came with a lovely recommendation....how bad could it be?
I made it through the day and was starting to feel quite lovely in fact.
I was taking my new meds every 4 hours and was thinking I was through the worst of it.
I get home in the evening, have a little dinner, take another pill, read a bit, then lay down to go to sleep....hmmm....not tired and its 10:30 and I'm sick?!?! Bizarre..
ok, laying here and still not tired, not even a yawn....11:03
11:42...maybe I'll just see if there is anything on TV (they call it the tellie here, but I can't get used to that - the tellie, if anything, is a phone to me!)
12:42....hmmmm...can't believe I am not tired! But am starting to get a bit stuffed up again...better take another pill since I'm awake.
1:38...Oh look!! They get Leno over here!!!
2:02....Is the writers strike not over yet? I can tell from the guests that this is a newer episode, but Leno is not really funny..."This product contains trace amounts of caffeine."
Trace amounts?!!? I know that there are many conversions to do here....currency, temperature, volume, etc....but does the term 'trace amount' not convert correctly?
Apparently "trace amount of caffeine" here in the UK is the US equivalent to popping espresso beans and washing them down with Jolt cola!!!!
I have no idea when I fell asleep....it was early though....
Luckily, though, I am now on the relaxed non-caffeinated road to recovery. After finally finding an pharmacist who was of age with a hair colour that God created, I have found that Beachum All in One capsule are the best thing for fighting Headache, blocked nose, sore throat and chesty coughs...and there is no caffeine.
No comments:
Post a Comment