I have Parkinson’s and I also have my husband as my carer. I’m lucky. One of my friends is also a Parkinson’s sufferer but lives independently, and without a carer.
With his prescription of Requip XL he finds it extremely difficult to get the tablets out of the blister packs. Numerous hours are spent each week getting the tablets out to store in his weekly tablet organiser.
He has asked his pharmacist to remove them from the packs for him and put them in a bottle instead, but he has refused on the grounds that they must be kept in the blister packs. (They store quite happily for a week in his organiser!!!)
We cannot find any information about this online or from GSK.
Has anyone else had this problem and if so what was the outcome?
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Hi @SheenaH,
A warm welcome to the forum.
It’s unfortunate that your friend has been having issues with his blister packs. Has he raised this with his Parkinson’s nurse? A large part of their role is helping people manage their medication, so if he hasn’t done so already, I would highly recommend that he does. He can also contact our helpline and speak to one of our advisers as they’d be able to offer him a few solutions. He can reach us on 0808 800 0303 Monday-Friday: 9am-7pm, Saturday: 10am-2pm.
Best wishes,
Reah
Thanks for the info Reah. For reasons that I won’t go into here, the local PNurse is an avenue that is not worth going down, but our friend is going to call the helpline.
Understatement of the century, the genius is then designing the pill itself to half, if anyone tries to remove it
Hi SheenaH,
I’ve found the only answer to remove the Reqiuip XL from their blister pack, is a pill popper. It’s not ideal as quite often they fall out of the popper, but it’s the only way I know to stop my thumbs from hurting.
Jackie