It has always been written so as to take into account the amount of med’s Ashley needs to sustain everyday life on normal healthy basis.  However, I now have a letter from Pharmac that states--and I quote from the letter here:

"If you are finding the amount of cortisone dispensed per prescription to be insifficienct then I suggest that you discuss this with your son’s Doctor and ask him/her to increase the number of tablet’s being prescribed.

There is no restirction on the amount of cortisone that can be dispensed per prescription so it should be quite possible for you to obtain the necessary supplies.  You will still need to ensure that each script is endorsed properly but this should help to reduce the number of times it is necessary to visit a Doctor for a new script."

(A copy of that was sent to Ashley’s Doctor in Wellington on the 25th October questioning how this could be done and asking if he knew this).

Before that I emailed however, I explained my problems and he offered to write out another script (but I have to pay for it) and it arrived the other day.  It was written out before I emailed him with a copy of the above on the 22nd.  He has written it out in the only way that I perceive he could legally write a script out.  Like this:

HYDROCORTISONE TABLETS

sig: 16.25mg daily in divided doses as directed.

Increase dose during illness as directed.

M: 3/12 supply.

CERTIFIED EXEMPTION

The guy at Pharmac seems to be implying that he allows for MORE on a daily basis.  Can Doctors do this?  Can they give me verbal instructions to give 16.25mg daily but really prescribe me say one third more to hold for emergencies???  I.e. where he writes sig: 16.25mg daily in divided doses, he would literally have to write something like:

sig: 20mg daily in divided doses.

Somehow, I do NOT feel that he would be able to do that knowing that I am technically only going to be giving 16.25mg and holding the other portion back in my stocks. 

I mean I just want to get to the bottom of what this guy is saying we can do in theory, and how it will look on a script and if it is legal for a Doctor to do that?

If anyone’s Doctor does do this, please let me know how they manage to do it and what they wrote? 

Thanks