Painful Prescriptions: Dangerous consequences when pharmacists get it wrong

LOVELAND, OH (FOX 19) -

Sitting at her kitchen table, Margaret Link recalls those strange months when she just didn't act like herself.

"I would fall asleep at my desk," she said.

She also remembers walking out in front of a car after work only to be rescued by her sister.

There was also her son's out-of-town hockey weekend, much of which she spent sleeping in the hotel room. As soon as they checked-in, "I immediately went to bed and told him to go hang-out with the other parents and kids. And I just slept all the way until the next morning."

Then one day, she showed-up at her pharmacy looking to re-fill her prescription for the allergy drug Claritin. This was back when doctors had to prescribe it.

"And they looked-up my name and said that they didn't have me on Claritin," Link recalled. "I said, Well, that's what I've been taking.'"

She called her son at home to get the prescription number off the bottle.

"And they told me, That's not what we've been fillingWe've got you on a pill for your nerves, honey.'"

People at the pharmacy told her that someone misread her doctor's prescription. Written in cursive, they told Link the "C" and "L" in Claritin looked like a large "A." So they prescribed her Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication, the "nerve pill" they were talking about.

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Painful Prescriptions: Dangerous consequences when pharmacists get it wrong