I am taking 9 different pills a day. When I asked my doctor what would happen if I just stopped them, he said I might be fine. Or I might have a stroke or a heart attack.
Discuss.
As well, some affect eating. Some affect, shall we say, erection. Yeah I said it.
Yeah I do that too. I am supposed to take them at certain hours. Fuck that. I take them all right before bed. They all say that they will make me drowsy at one point or another. I bang them back at night and sleep fine.
“Look, Rich, I cant really be bothered to give your question much thought. I’ve got a tee time in about 10 minutes, ok? Maybe you’ll get hit by a bus walking out of here, I mean who really knows anything?”
I’m late 30s and I take 5 pills and a gel every day. Being fat sucks. Wish it was easier to lose weight. The one pill I took that was supposed to give me a side effect of losing weight gave me the worst damn headaches and I called uncle after about a week of it.
Yeah, I take 3 different RX things, and two over the counter things my doctor said, and then, in the spring and summer, I need at least one allergy thing. I take 'em all just before bed. One of them is supposed to make me flush, but it only happens once in a while. I’ll be laying there and my whole body will start to tingle and the first thing I think is that it’s a flashback or allergies or something, and then usually the next day I’ll realize. Oh, wait. That was a flush.
I’m on several pills myself but I am not sweating the pills so much once I found out that my doctor wants me to go on chemical infusion therapy for my Rheumatoid Arthritis this summer.
I was recently put on a blood thinner, Eliquis. I gather it’s a much used drug.
Anyway, my company recently changed healthcare providers and when I went in to get the refill of the Eliquis, the pharmacy guy told me it was $485! I realized I didn’t have my new medical card, went home and got it, went back and presented it and he ran it and said, oh, that’s better. That’s $260 now.
I told him no, I’m not getting that. I’ll get my doctor to put me on something different. There’s got to be a generic of something out there that will thin my blood – maybe some hard drinking?
So I go home and about half an hour later my phone rings. It’s CVS, my pharmacy. The guy says hey, it looks like there’s a program we can put you on that will get you the Eliquis for a $10 co-pay.
So I went back and got it. From almost $500 down to $10. What a crazy episode.
Not really meds, but about a year and a half ago, I started experiencing constant pain in my upper back. anytime I performed any kind of physical activity - even normal walking. A dull, deep ache that would radiate out to my arms and hands if I kept going. An MRI showed it was a ruptured disc in my neck. The orthopedist wanted to do surgery, but I balked, and wanted to try something less drastic first.
So it was off to physical therapy, where they had me doing various exercises with an elastic band. It did nothing. Then I moved onto a steroid shot into the back of my neck, which cut the pain down to about 75%, then back to normal a week later. Then, 6 weeks at a chiropractor, which accomplished zilch. After that, cortisone shots in my back, which worked for about 4 hours.
About this time, my wife, who works in physical therapy, brought home something over one weekend that they use at her work - a Cervitrac. Basically a traction device that looks like a neck brace with an air bladder inside that you pump up manually. Instant pain relief when applied. You’re supposed to keep it on for 20-30 minutes per session, so I did that, and started seeing results that weekend. I ended up buying one (about $200) so I could take it to work, but it’s been working great - the pain is much less than it used to be and I feel like it’ll help eventually heal it to the point where there’s no pain at all.
So that’s great, but I’m kinda miffed that with all the doctors, specialists, and therapists I saw over the preceding year, no one thought to bring up traction.
Glad you got something that worked without having to resort to surgery. I think of surgery as a last resort type of thing. I feel like too many things can go wrong so if there’s a more natural way of fixing something, try that first.
Man that highlights so much of why that’s my number 1 voting issue, right there. That’s insane.
I have a prescription for Omeprazole, which is the acid reflux/heartburn medication in OTC drugs like Prilosec and others.
If I get the prescription filled at CVS it’s $60 for 90 pills. I can get the same amount from Amazon for $30 without a prescription.
Yeah my doc had me on a scrip for omeprazole. I filled it once. Just once.
I take over 40 pills per day, plus 4 nebulized medications, and 2 more inhaled powder meds. Lung treatment/maintenance is a pain.
Yeah, and it doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence that you are being billed correctly.
Now I’m dealing with the cost of a 14 hour stay in a hospital where I was observed, hooked to some monitoring devices, and had a medicinal drip inserted. That’s all they did. It’s something like $7-8k in bills so far, of which I’m responsible for $5,000. I have pretty good insurance, too, but it’s all a bit bewildering to me.
I have an $800 charge from something labeled “osteopathic surgery” or something like that, but I had no surgery unless putting a drip in my arm is what it’s referring to. A doctor at the hospital who talked with me for about five minutes has billed me $400. I have bills from at least 7 or 8 different sources and my insurance company has paid nearly all of some and hardly anything on others. I will probably end up devoting an entire day to trying to figure it all out. I may end up taking a vacation day to deal with it.
The stress of figuring it out might finish you off !
Want to see something that will make your blood boil about stupid the US healthcare system is compared to the rest of the world?
Ha ha – I know. I figure I will have to spend hours on the phone trying to get explanations. First step, apparently, is to request a detailed bill.
I was medication free until about 4 months ago. After seeing a cardiologist and taking some tests I am now on generic Plavix, generic Lipitor and generic metropol. I don’t like the idea of being on them, but with my current insurance the cost isn’t restrictive and taking them is better than the possible options.
I take Novolog insulin. I used to get a box of five pens every month; no problem. Then something happened and I started getting four pens in a plastic bag, no box. Apparently either the pharmacy or insurance made this change to fit my prescribed units/day exactly, probably to save money. But between the occasional need for extra insulin and ejecting a unit to remove air, etc., I needed that fifth pen. Also, the copay was still the same with four pens instead of five per refill. I found out that it would be the same copay no matter how many pens I got. So I called my endocrinologist’s office to see if I could get a prescription for six pens instead of four, but either I told them the wrong units per day or they mis-transcribed them, because now my Novalog refill is 15 pens and it still costs the same copay. The pharmacy still opens up the five-pen boxes too and stuffs a gigantic handful of pens into a bigger plastic bag. Novolog works longer than a month if it’s refrigerated, so my annual out-of-pocket cost has dropped by about half.
I take Plavix. I thought it was only for people with stents? I’m surprised your cardiologist would start you on that without first giving you a stent. I guess it’s got more purpose than I realize.