My mother gets her medication filled thru a popular mail order pharmacy here in the States. She just received a new bottle of blood pressure medicine and mentioned that the pills looked diffent than what she'd been taking. I checked both bottles of pills. The newest bottle were the correct pills, purple and white capsules. The old bottle (which had about 20 left from a 90 day supply) where white tablets instead of capsules. I called the pharmacy and told them I thought they had sent the wrong medication on her previous order. The pharmacist I spoke with confirmed that the pills were Metformin - blood sugar pills. So, my mom has been taking 1000 mg too much of her blood sugar medicine daily and not getting any of the blood pressure medicine she needed. (That would explain why her blood pressure was so high when she went to the doctor last week.) To make matters worse, the pharmacist sort of tried to blame my mom, basically accusing her of pouring her medicine into a different bottle. As a nurse, I would have owned up if I made a mistake. It makes me so mad that a healthcare professional seemed more interested in trying to CYA rather than admit they did something wrong. The patient simply cannot be blamed. I hope this pharmacist realizes how much worse it could have been if it had been Digoxin or blood thinner in that bottle.
I also should point out that the Metformin my mom takes looks completely different than the Metformin they sent in the blood pressure med bottle.