A few people with heart problems take too much of the stuff, and the rest of us get to feel like criminals. It’s the best stuff if you have a congested chest. (or need a little pick me up)
I decided to just talk to my doctor again and showed him my records again, etc. Told him if he was concerned about my abusing it or using too much I’d be happy to come in and pee in a cup any time he called me up and requested it. He agreed, so I’m legit again - thank goodness, migraines with the meds are a bear, without they are unbearable.
Not really. It’s more a side effect of the FDA being simultaneously underfunded, overprotective, and industry-friendly. Two would be okay, but you really can’t have all three.
No, the paranoia among doctors about ‘over-prescribing’ is a direct side effect of the DEA crackdowns and the war on drugs.
What does the FDA and the pharma industry have to do with a problem which ultimately boils down to his doctor’s reluctance to re-prescribe something the patient needs?
One thing you can’t really control is the quality or content of the drug you receive; in the US, a pharmacy will lose its license for selling substandard medication, but that stick doesn’t exist for those overseas drug exporters.
Sort of. That and the insurance concerns.
What does the FDA and the pharma industry have to do with a problem which ultimately boils down to his doctor’s reluctance to re-prescribe something the patient needs?
I think he’s referring to the increased cost of meds that comes with regulations.
I’ve never used any other form of ephedra, but in the past I have combined Bronkaid with a no-doze and got the effect described by people that have used other ephedra stack products before they were banned. It is a semi-controlled substance now (as you probably noticed when you bought it) so they’re supposed to make you show id when you buy a box of Bronkaid and if you buy a whole bunch in a short time, presumably the feds will come and see if you’re running a meth lab or whatever.
It’s not too hard to order ephedrine-hcl tabs from Canada. They mix bronkaid with a mucus producer. Still very effective, just a little annoying. :)
Arise, thread! I’ve considered going with a source indicated on the website pharmacychecker.com (the one indicated above). I have a prescription, but am balking at the ridONKulous U.S. prices for one of these modern-day “patent medicines” that’s not subsidized by my insurance plan (yeah, you can probably figure out the kind I’m talking about–the kind one gets non-stop spam emails about). Nearly 17 bucks a pill!? Homey don’t play dat. I can get it for 50 cents a pill from Canuckistan. Luckily the Obama Administration is looking the other way (much to PHARMA’s chagrin, I’m sure).
My wife has been suffering for a long time with constant eye irritation. It’s not like “Oh, my eye is itchy,” it’s, “I just got something in my eye and it hurts to exist.” She suffered with it for a long time, through multiple doctor visits, emergency room stops, and optometry appointments, all the while encountering reactions ranging from misdiagnosis, to indifference, to being completely blown off and treated as if there wasn’t a problem.
It was hard for me to understand it. I get something in my eye, I blink a few times, and it goes away. She gets something in her eye, and she spends the next hour in agony trying to figure out if she got it out and hoping the pain recedes.
She finally saw an opthamalogist, who immidiately realized it was chronic dry eye. She’s not producing the damned tears that keep your eyes from itching the fuck to death.
So she got prescribed a drug called Restasis, which was completely life-changing. She gets something in her eye, blinks a few times, and it’s gone.
Then the problem: This shit is expensive. 30 days is $300. We had insurance through her employer, but she was laid off in March, and haven’t had insurance since June.
We haven’t gotten signed back up for insurance, and even if we did, she wouldn’t have coverage for 6+ months.
So is there anywhere reliable and safe to get this sort of thing outside of the US? Canada is just a stone’s throw from Detroit…
Due to some lack of insurance issues a few years ago, I did end up ordering a pretty common medication from one of those Mexican outfits. I had no problems, but felt nervous about the whole thing. I suspect the more expensive/potent/controlled the medication, the more careful you have to be.
I’m considering ordering some of the same medication again to get into the new year without having to visit the doctor. This is mainly because of some screwed up stuff having to do with my current medical insurance and what it will cover the rest of this year (nothing) versus early next year (everything), and how the clinic I’ve been using for the last few years chooses to bill despite my actual income level. Basically, if I go to the doctor now it will cost me far more then if I can wait until after Jan. 1st. I just don’t have quite enough of the one medication to make it.
I’m having trouble parsing this. Are you saying your wife has never even tried regular cheap moisturizing eye drops, or that they didn’t work?
All I know is that when I look up the generic drug equivalent of that drug it’s the same stuff (1 & 2% concentrations) they use for dogs at $20 a bottle.
Didn’t work. They wear off quickly, and are no substitute for a constant flow of natural tears.
This medicine doesn’t go off patent till 2014, so there shouldn’t be any generics available.
Okay, that makes sense. I often have dry eyes myself but nowhere near as bad, so the occasional moisturizing drops are good enough for me. Didn’t know that there was a drug specifically to encourage natural tear flow in severe cases.
All I did was google “Restasis Pharmacy” and got this: http://www.northdrugstore.com/buy-Restasis.html
It appears that there is a generic of it, at least in Canada. You’re going to need a prescription, though. Any no-script sites will charge you a ridiculous premium, and then there’s still the chance it’ll get seized at the border. A few years ago when I was basically in the same situation (no insurance, etc), I needed to find a cheap place to buy the Clonazepam I use to treat my panic disorder, and I managed to find a no-script Indian pharmacy that shipped by courier. Couriers have a better chance of being ignored by customs. It’s illegal to import prescription drugs from outside the country, and they will seize your shit if they find it, so keep that in mind.
Well, when it goes off patent the generic name will be [I]cyclosporine ophthalmic[/I], which is the same stuff they use on animals. Unless the human dose is wildly different that the canine dose (aside from the fact that the canine version has some sort of vegetable oil in it I’m sure the stupidly expensive magical human variety probably doesn’t have), I just thought the price differences were shitty.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth here, but I can google as well as the next guy. What I’m looking for are sites people have actually used and haven’t been ripped off by. As much as I’d like to trust northdrugstore or anyone else who pops up in results, a ton of scammers in the foreign prescription drug category and I’d feel safer dealing with a site that people have actually used.
I think I still have a couple bookmarked on my netbook at home. I’ll PM you the links when I can. However, that site is CIPA-certified (you can look it up if you like) so it should be safe. It’s really too bad drugbuyers.com closed their forums, that was the best resource for finding out which were the scammy sites and which weren’t. However, this site has sprung up to replace it. I’d recommend reading the testimonials in there.