I know that most topics about early refills tend to refer to a person using class 3 drugs like Vicodin,etc. I surely do understand that because I've been on everything from Vicodin to Oxy and during those times there were a few times where I did need to refill the meds early(usually happened the first week after a surgery, which I've had several). Also another factor in these posts is problems with insurance as well.
My question, however, is a bit different. It's about schedule 4 drugs. I know these are supposed to be nowhere near as bad as schedule 2 and 3 drugs in terms of potency and abuse factor. What are the refill guidelines like for these types of prescriptions? I'm just wondering what experiences people have had when filling these types of medicines?
Before you answer, I want to share some research on the subject I've done. I've been on
Tramadol, also known as
Ultram, for a while now, I've rarely needed an early refill. However, someone in my family is also on this same drug. They have gotten frequent early refills in the past from both Walgreens and Wal-mart, whom I've heard are usually strict with other medicines.
I'm going to elaborate on what I meant by early refills. I know this particular family member is probably either abusing/selling his pills, but this person has gotten numerous early refills, and when I say early I don't just mean 3-5 days early. To put it in perspective, this person would usually get a 30 day supply of meds with 3-6 refills.
He has sometimes refilled this 30 day supply on the 12-13th day out of 30. He did this many many times with Walgreens. He told me they never really said anything, and that sometimes when he was filling super early like only after 8-10 days they'd refuse to fill it, but he'd just try again on like the 13-14th day and they'd refill it it. He said this has gone on for over a year. He also said he had the same script at Wal-mart, who I know used to give ME hell about my vicodin years ago, but wal-mart filled this med on the 18th day out of 30. Keep in mind this family member(my cousin) had no insurance of any kind.
This struck me as really really strange because I had my scripts for the same med at Target, and they've only let me fill once on the 25th day out of 30..and they gave me a lot of trouble. A second time they let me fill on the 28th day out of 30, with little trouble. Which is all well and good, but that's 3-5 days early, not the sometimes 10-16 days early my cousin had gotten, and we practically live in the SAME neighborhood.
I know..I know people will say it "depends on the pharmacist" which I know is true, but then again my cousin had to of gotten his early refills from more than one pharmacist. I have trouble believing two big chain pharmacies would both be filled with nothing but extremely lenient pharmacists. So I concluded that it must be more the medicine than the pharmacist. Can schedule 4 drugs really be filled this early?
Before I end this post I want to clarify a few things: I do not clarify what this cousin of mine is doing, in terms of getting way too many early refills. I know it is wrong, I simply used it as an example in my post. I also know my cousin was not lying to me as I saw all the bottles of medication and inspected them myself. I'm just curious as to why he did not get as much hassle for a schedule 4 drug, and if anyone else has experienced similar events or if they just in general have information on the refilling policies of schedule 4 drugs or even Ultram/Tramadol in general. Also to point out I too do not have any type of insurance policy.
Oh and if anyone is curious I live in Illinois.
Not your typical early refill thread.. 
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