Mystery Drug

I was counting the minutes until 6pm (the time unto which I am released from the clutches of Hell) when a woman came to the pharmacy counter. She was a polite woman, which I took kindly to. A prescription was handed to me, I told her the usual spiel, and walked to my terminal. Then I looked at the script and saw:

Diltiazem 0.3%/Lidocane Gel
As Directed, 60gm

Ok... I'm going in my head. Diltiazem is a calcium channel blocker used mainly in hypertension. It is usually in tablet or capsule form (very pretty capsules I might add). So why the hell is this saying its a cream.

Quick google search... well sure enough it is a cream but is usually used in some sort of hospital setting. Used for 'anal fissures'... got a slight giggle out of that. I stroll on over to our wholesaler computer and type the name in the search field.... and get nada. I search under various brand names for Diltiazem and still nothing.

Finally I decided to call the wholesaler, 15 minutes on hold and they don't know what the hell it is. I call our nursing service pharmacy (where our most experienced pharmacists are) and I stump all four of them. None of them have heard of it before, nor have any idea where to get it.

I called the doctors office, but I called 1 minute after they closed so naturally I was greeted with a recording. I was stumped. The pharmacist was stumped. The robot was stumped.

After digging on the net and a couple of books for another 15 minutes we explained to the woman the situation and asked if she would be willing to come back tomorrow. She was quite cordial and told us to take our time and that she'd call us tomorrow evening. Nice lady.

So when I get into work tomorrow I shall call the only compounding pharmacy in our little city. Been a while since I've had something thats actually eluded my googling prowlness. Perhaps I need to the batsuit to solve this mystery...