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ProfessorTomoe

Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

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6 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Dear God. With everything else that has been going on, I did not need this.

I logged in to CVS to check on my Trintellix anti-depressant prescription refill. It's a 30-day supply, and I have a discount card from the manufacturer. Even with that, the price is usually around $106.

This time it was listed as around $208.

Get on a website that does price comparisons on drugs. Such as this one: https://www.goodrx.com/?c=gemini

I did that the other day and we're switching pharmacies. My lady's monthly prescription cost is going to drop from over $700 to under $200.

 

edit: oops, it looks like you can't save any money on that particular drug... in fact, apparently you have insurance that will still be paying over $150 for your prescription. However, still go check, maybe you can save a bundle on *other* prescriptions.

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Update: we got lucky. Mrs. Prof tried the one trick I hadn't thought of—going into the pharmacy and saying, "We're supposed to have a discount card on that."

It worked. They'd left off the discount card codes.

They re-ran the prescription with the discount card and came up with the old price. Hallelujah. We both feel so relieved. I feel so dumb.

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6 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Update: we got lucky. Mrs. Prof tried the one trick I hadn't thought of—going into the pharmacy and saying, "We're supposed to have a discount card on that."

It worked. They'd left off the discount card codes.

They re-ran the prescription with the discount card and came up with the old price. Hallelujah. We both feel so relieved. I feel so dumb.

Whew. And hopefully you'll get over that soon, Prof. Bureaucracy is a maze that is meant to make its victims feel dumb.

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See y'all in a minimum of six hours.  Just took 2 of my last 4 "really top end " migraine pills.  Even the laptop is too bright.  I hope this under control by dawn (or I am knocked out) or I'm going to need to move into the bathroom or the bathroom closet for a while.  Drugs are starting to kick in so bye bye.

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53 minutes ago, mlooney said:

See y'all in a minimum of six hours.  Just took 2 of my last 4 "really top end " migraine pills.  Even the laptop is too bright.  I hope this under control by dawn (or I am knocked out) or I'm going to need to move into the bathroom or the bathroom closet for a while.  Drugs are starting to kick in so bye bye.

See you when your body lets you back on the internet. Man, even with all my ailments, I feel you drew the shorter straw. Get better soon.

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6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Whew. And hopefully you'll get over that soon, Prof. Bureaucracy is a maze that is meant to make its victims feel dumb.

You said a double-red-tape mouthful, which must now be recorded in triplicate, signed, reviewed, stamped, reviewed again, re-filed, and submitted to the appropriate department head who will stamp one copy and send the rest back through the whole damned process.

I told you I worked for the Internal Revenue Service (the U.S. tax agency). I got to see it at its worst when I was something called a "Payment Tracer" back in the mid-to-late '80s. That's sort of a White Hat position among the IRS staff. Lots of authority to go digging through records, looking for records of lost payments. I got to see just how relatively ancient some of the technology was during that time. Case in point: some payments had problems with their identification that made them "unpostable" to an account. Those were recorded on trays of punch cards, which were Xeroxed after being run through the mainframe. Usually, if the taxpayer provided sufficient proof and we could match it to an unpostable record, we could "force post" the money onto their account. However, we had a long-standing problem with a certain range of unpostable ID numbers—no one could match anything in that range to any documentation the taxpayers sent.

One night, I went back to the dusty hall where the records were kept (yes, it was an old, poorly lit, brick-walled, dusty dead-end hallway) and did some deeper-than-normal research into the issue. You won't believe what I found. Someone had dropped a pair of punch card trays and had put them back together out-of-sequence. It resulted in Taxpayer A getting Taxpayer B's money, Taxpayer B getting Taxpayer C's money, and so on. At least a thousand taxpayers were affected by this "slipped unpostable" problem. My finding resulted in the closing of a metric crapload of lost payment cases.

Ahem. Back to the topic at hand. Going back to my primary doctor for my laryngospasm cough today. I'm expecting him to prescribe a nebulizer plus some medicine to go with it.

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2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

See you when your body lets you back on the internet. Man, even with all my ailments, I feel you drew the shorter straw. Get better soon.

I woke up.  Migraine down to "I hate life" level.  Not the "please, just knock me out" level.  Off to take mid grade drugs and see how they do.  If they don't knock it down to "ouch, my head hurts" or lower, I'll take the last 2 good stuff as soon as it's safe.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

If they don't knock it down to "ouch, my head hurts" or lower

I got very freaking lucky.  Knocked it down to "meh, I might have a headache, I don't know, maybe?"  I'm not in postdrome, so it's possible that in a few hours I might be back to hating life, but right now it's a freaking win.

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Why almost all my migraine medication has caffeine in it.  For about 2% of the population there is the possibility of "rebound migraines" from taking caffeine, but, thank all things lawful good, I a not part of that unlucky 2%

From the National Headache Foundation's web site:

Quote

Caffeine can be a headache trigger or headache inhibitor. Caffeine can be found in beverages, chocolate and even in some popular over-the-counter and prescription pain relievers.

Before a headache or migraine, blood vessels tend to enlarge. Because it contains “vasoconstrictive” properties that cause the blood vessels to narrow and restrict blood flow, caffeine can aid in head pain relief. When caffeine is added to the combination of acetaminophen and aspirin, the pain relieving effect is increased by 40%.

Though caffeine does not directly cause headache, too much of the substance can trigger “caffeine rebound.” A caffeine rebound headache occurs from withdrawal of caffeine after a sufferer continually consumes too much of the substance. Though the physical side effects can be severe, only 2% of the population suffers from caffeine rebound.

 

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Back from my primary care doctor. Result one: I'm on a nebulizer, taking ipratropium bromide every 8 hours. Result two: I'm being referred to a pulmonologist. That's doctor number nine, for anyone who's keeping count. I didn't have this many when I was in ICU back in 2009. Result three: he doesn't want the back doctors doing any surgery on me while I've still got this laryngospasm cough. Too dangerous, he says, and in retrospect, I can see why he said so. No matter how much my back and right leg hurt, if I go into one of my coughing spasms while recovering from back surgery, I'll tear things all to hell, and then some.

What the farking hell did I do to bring this onto myself? Huh? Can someone answer that? I am in full-on vent mode, and I've got my engine tuned to belch as much smoke as possible. I'm sorry, but there are just some things that tear the crap out of me, and today's events fall under that category. Damn it, who the smeg decided it was going to be "gang up on the Professor day" today?

Well, by God, I am NOT going to take this lying down (actually, I probably will, thanks to the damned hydrocodone, but I won't go gentle into that good medicine coma). If someone wants to take me down, they're going to have to do it with me kicking and screaming as hard as my body and my laryngitis-afflicted voice box will allow. If this is going to be the death of me, it's going to have one hell of a fight on its hands getting me there.

Thus endeth the rant. Go in whatever mood you choose.

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1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

More like Mrs. Prof taking care of me at the moment, but I get the idea. I'll do my best. Thank you for letting me rant.

As mlooney has said before, that is more or less what this entire thread is for, as well as several others. So you're very welcome. Keep us posted!

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

As mlooney has said before, that is more or less what this entire thread is for, as well as several others. So you're very welcome. Keep us posted!

Thank you. Very much obliged, especially now.

Do you know how hard it is to cough when you've got a nebulizer mouthpiece in your mouth? You'd best aim away from your computer, or you're going to end up with ipratropium bromide on your keyboard.

It's also best that you're not prone to hearing voices from nowhere, because I swear the nebulized solution is trying to form coherent words. Either that, or I'm picking up Mexican radio from the nebulizer unit ...

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Second nebulizer treatment finished. (The first one was last night.)

COUGH COUGH COUGH WHEEZE COUGH GASP COUGH

Still sounds like an old Stutz Bearcat trying (but failing) to start.

Next treatment in eight hours.

Now waiting for the hydrocodone to kick in. Sleeping was hell overnight. The pain relief wore off around 2:30 a.m. — woke me up. Couldn't get back to sleep until almost four. Woke up just after five and went straight for the hydrocodone, then the aforementioned nebulizer.

Then the coffee.

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15 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

What the farking hell did I do to bring this onto myself? Huh?

Remember the immortal words of Marcus Cole.  "I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

You didn't do anything.  Crap happens.  It sucks.  If we can help make it suck any less with distractions, audience for venting, and sympathy, we're here.

*virtual hugs*  ('cos virtual ones don't make anything hurt more, unlike real ones might)

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6 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Remember the immortal words of Marcus Cole.  "I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

You didn't do anything.  Crap happens.  It sucks.  If we can help make it suck any less with distractions, audience for venting, and sympathy, we're here.

*virtual hugs*  ('cos virtual ones don't make anything hurt more, unlike real ones might)

Moving words. I appreciate them, along with the hugs. I really do. Thank you.

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Bit of a schedule change. I was supposed to have my CT myelogram tomorrow (Wednesday). The hospital called me this morning and went through the standard pre-op stuff, with a few unexpected bits. One such bit was that I have to be off of most of my antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs for 48 hours—cold turkey—prior to the procedure. Needless to say, I can't go back in time a day and cut off my meds, so the procedure's been rescheduled for Monday, with my follow-up rescheduled for next Wednesday.

Meanwhile, I've been through three nebulizer treatments so far. I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to do them. They're not trying to talk to me anymore. Or at least I think that's what they've been telling me.

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