A war veteran who lost an “arm and [a] leg” was denied pain medication from a Walgreens, his daughter claims, after a pharmacist looked him up and down and decided that he didn’t need that high of a dosage.
Makenzie Marshall (@makenzie.marshall) claims in a series of viral TikToks, the first of which has accrued over one million views on the popular social media platform, that she suspects the same Walgreens pharmacist had “tampered” with her medications as well.
Numerous TikTokers urged her to report the pharmacist to Walgreens’ corporate offices along with her local pharmacy board.
“I think I’ve just discovered something about my Walgreens that I was not supposed to know and now I don’t know who to tell,” Marshall begins her first clip.
“All this started because my dad needed to pick up some prescriptions from Walgreens,” she continues. “My dad got blown up by a bomb in the military, and he takes pain medication. I’m sure you could take a guess why.”
Marshall says their family had a two-week trip to Florida booked, and her dad was supposed to pick up his medication the day before they left.
“The whole week leading up to it he’s calling the pharmacy making sure that they’ll have it ready in time for us to leave,” she says. “[The] lady on the phone is like, ‘No problem, we’ve got it in your file. It’ll be ready by 10 am.'”
She then says this wasn’t at all the case. “It was not ready by 10 am,” Marshall recalls. “Instead, he shows up to pick up his medicine and they’re like, ‘We don’t even have any of your dosage in the building. All we have is a lot lower of a dosage than what you take. But if you call your doctor and get them to write a prescription for it then we can fill it.’ But my dad’s doctor isn’t open on Fridays, so that means we all had to wait till Monday.”
As a result of the Walgreens’ location’s lack of appropriate attention to her father’s medical history and flipping the script on her father the day they were supposed to leave for their vacation, she says that their trip ultimately had to be delayed.
“Trip gets pushed back, that’s fine. Super early in the morning his doctor calls and is like, ‘I filled the prescription but because it’s a lower dosage you’ll have to take more throughout the day.’ He gets the notification from the Walgreens app saying that his prescription is in the process of being filled. He shows up to Walgreens and they’re like, ‘Yeah there was a problem with the medicine but we’ll get back to you just have a seat over there.'”
Marshall says her father waited there for almost four hours. “Finally, he gets up and is like, ‘OK, what’s going on? Because I was supposed to be on the road now.”
However, the pharmacist told her father she wouldn’t be able to fill his prescription.
“So obviously my dad’s like, ‘Why?’ I sh*t you not, this b*tch looks him up and down, [and says] ‘I just think it’s really way too excessive for you. You really don’t need this much.'”
The TikToker’s eyes widen as she stares into the camera. “I pray that she doesn’t end up in some kind of tragic accident where she’s missing limbs and is in the most pain that a person could ever be in their life and then have to deal with the b*tch like herself who tells her that she’s not in that much pain and doesn’t need the medicine,” she says.
Even after her father’s doctor argued with the pharmacist over the phone, she still refused to fill the prescription.
“Oh, and then the pharmacist tried to blame it all on my dad’s doctor,” Marshall says. “The doctor called it into a different pharmacy and he was able to pick it up way later in the day but it was extra annoying because Walgreens is the only pharmacy that takes his insurance. So as I’m thinking about this entire experience, I realized all of the f*cked up stuff this pharmacist has done to my medication.”
@makenzie.marshall all is alleged for entertainment purposes only
♬ original sound – MxKenzie
In a follow-up video, Marshall goes on to say that she believes the pharmacist at the same Walgreens has been “tampering” with her medication and that she was once given four prescriptions for medicines she has never taken before “in [her] life.” Upon bringing up the issue to the pharmacist, Marshall says that the employee attempted to pass the blame onto either her or her doctor, which she found strange as she was sure to select the correct medications in the Walgreens application she used to put in her prescription.
Marshall then said that Walgreens replaced the birth control her doctor prescribed to her with another brand that her doctor never once prescribed to her. She notes that she wasn’t comfortable with taking a different kind of birth control, due to the various side effects that are associated with specific medications, and she knew that the one she had previously taken worked for her.
In another incident at the same Walgreens with the same pharmacist, Marshall says that after getting into a car accident, she received a direct call from the pharmacist asking if the medicine she was using was working for her. At the time, the TikToker says, she didn’t think anything of it and that the pharmacist was being nice, but after the incident with her father, and her other encounters with the employee, she thought it was strange that the prescription filler at the Walgreens was attempting to recommend different medications to customers despite not being her primary care physician.
Though Marshall disclaims in the captions of both videos, “All is alleged for entertainment purposes only.”
@makenzie.marshall all is alleged for entertainment purposes only (part 2)
♬ original sound – MxKenzie
Commenters who saw the post argued that Marshall or her father should take legal action against Walgreens and lodge complaints with corporate offices about the pharmacist’s behavior.
“He should file complaints..illegal under ADA,” one person wrote.
Another penned that they too have had negative experiences with the drugstore chain. “Walgreens is sooooo frustrating. They never fill stuff when they say they will, their lines are SO LONG. And they DGAF,” they wrote.
“My mom who has terminal cancer has to wait 2-3 weeks for Walgreens to fill her pain meds after the script is sent in. It is cruel,” a further user echoed.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Walgreens and Marshall via email for further comment.