Welcome to my Friday Rants. My spot in the week where I get things off my chest. I’ve also linked up with MummyBarrow for her Ranty Friday. Please come and join us. A good rant can be therapeutic!
Before I rant, I have to say, I have to say, I have to praise Tescos! I normally find this time of year incredibly stressful. I don’t enjoy Christmas shopping, in the crowds, and find waiting in for parcels very frustrating but this year, I have to say, Tescos have delivered. Not only have we been able to participate in their voucher exchange programme so saved quite lot of money by exchanging our club card points for vouchers, which they then doubled the value of, but I ordered Small Boy and Big Girl’s main Christmas presents online on Wednesday evening, and they delivered them to our local Tesco on Thursday, and I was able to collect them, stash them in our car, got them home easily, and now am breathing a sigh of relief that one of my major tasks is complete. Thank You Tesco. You are definitely in my good books!
Now for the RANTS!
Poor LSH has had a bad dose of flu. He’s been very stressed at work, and sleep is still a bit lacking in our house (Small Boy, we adore you, but PLEASE, some sleep would be nice!) so he came down with a lurgy. To be fair, it was proper flu, not “Man Flu”. He’s had a fever, been achy and shaking, coughing, snotty, and really not himself. I went into Kingston, to get his medication of choice, Night Nurse (it’s what he swears by, I personally think it’s vile stuff, but it does seem to help him sleep)
This is Night Nurse:
These are its ingredients: Paracetamol; which is a pain reliever and anti pyretic, reduces fever, promethazine; which is a sedative anti-histamine, helps to dry up snot and mucous (lovely, I know) and dextromethorphan which is a cough suppressant.
So, I trot to a local chemists, (Superdrug) and look on the shelf, for this lovely product. I can’t see it, so I ask a sales assistant where I can find it. She tells me “sorry, you can’t buy that here, we’re not a pharmacy, we don’t sell it”. So I have to then go to the local pharmacy, and queue up amongst about 20 other people coughing and sneezing in the queue, to ask for Night Nurse. At this point, I’m a little peeved, because I had other things to be doing. I figured that because Night Nurse has a sedative in it, it’s probably not something they want any old random person buying in it and knocking themselves into a coma. So, I get to the front of the queue, and ask for it. The lady behind the counter (who is not medically trained in any way shape or form, I asked) asks me “have you used this product before?” I say we have, and I know how and when to take it. I then ask her why I can’t buy it at Superdrug in it. She tells me it’s because it contains paracetamol, and they have to warn people of this, in case they overdose. This, in itself makes sense, a paracetamol overdose can be lethal, and when you’re unwell, you could take too much by mistake, if taking medications to relieve your symptoms. What makes no sense is that I could have gone to Superdrug, bought a pack of Paracetamol, plus a separate anti histamine, and cough suppressant, which would all have done the same job as Night Nurse and no one would have questioned me. I could, technically take the wrong amount of paracetamol, and overdose. But because I want to buy a bottle of Night Nurse, I have to go to a counter and explain myself to a non medically trained person? To me this makes no sense, and is a sort of health and safety thing gone mad?? In one pack of paracetamol you have 500mg tablets. It is recommended you take no more than 4 doses of 1000mg of paracetamol in 24 hours, this is clearly explained on all packets of the stuff. So you shouldnt take Night Nurse, which contains 1000mg of paracetamol per dose, if you have already reached your limit of paracetamol. This makes sense, but there is still no preventing someone from buying a pack of paracetamol and taking too much by mistake.
Maybe it’s because I’m a nurse, and I have a little bit of medical knowledge, and this has boggled my mind slightly, but to me, if they’re going to be worried about people taking paracetamol and overdosing, surely there should be checks when someone buys a pack, rather than sending someone on a wild goose chase to buy one item containing it, when they can buy another item off the shelf with no questions asked?
If anyone can shed any light on this one, and explain it to me, I’d love to hear it!
My other rant is about snow and ice…
I hate the stuff, but realise there is little we can actually do about it, being as the weather is a tad uncontrollable. However, I do wonder what planet the people who work for public transport and the road services in this country live on? Why is it, when we get a bout of cold weather, frost, cold, ice or snow everything comes to a grinding halt, and all we get is “poor weather conditions are causes transport issues” when the trains fail to run, and roads are lethal. Do they sit there, in their warm, cosy offices, nursing hot cups of tea, looking amazed at the weather, which, being as it is December, is inclined to be COLD, ICY, and possibly even SNOWY, and wonder what on earth has hit them? We spend an absolute fortune on travel cards and rail fares in this country, and yet they don’t seem to be able to put any money into making sure the system can cope with the cold weather, that SHOCK & HORROR, happens each year! I saw so many Tweets and Facebook comments about trains being stuck, delayed or cancelled, due to the relatively short bout of ice and snow we had this week, and felt relieved that I don’t have to commute any more, but seriously, this is the UK, we get cold weather, why can’t our transport system cope?
Those are my rants for the week. Have a lovely weekend, keep warm folks!
Re Paracetemol. YOu can only buy a certain amount in one transaction in supermarkets. But it doesnt occur to them that you just pay for one lot with some shopping and then put the “next customer” sign up and buy the rest.
If somebody is going to overdoes on Paracetemol do they really think these ridiculous “safe guards” are going to stop them?
Indeed, if I had a mind to, I could go to one place, buy paracetamol, then go to another shop and do the same, and as long as you only buy one pack at a time, no one questions it. But if I had taken say the daily limit dose of paracetamol, 4000mg, and then gone and bought a packet, for overnight relief and took more, I would be overdosing, unintentionally, hence why we have to explain ourselves buying NightNurse makes no sense, when you can buy the components of it separately with no questions asked. They need to rethink the whole thing, I think.