FYI re pain meds

((((Hugs)))) I'm sorry.

I hear you. I take Zyrtec D. It has to be dispensed at the pharmacy. How many days worth can I get? 12 DAYS. Not two weeks, not a month. WTH? One pharmacist finally told me if a doctor writes a prescription I can get a months worth at a time. So much easier.

That is weird. Zyrtec is OTC and the Sudafed that’s added to it is also over the counter, however limited snd tracked. Maybe it’s the amount in the Zyrtec D that changes that. That is crazy. Who has time to deal with going every 12 days heck even a month seem like a lot.

It's not just pain and cold meds. I just switched from a military pharmacy to a civilian one. They will only give me 20 days of insulin at a time. I've been taking the same kind of insulin for 10+ years. What they think I'm going to do with the rest is beyond me, but what a PITA. This is a medication that I literally need to live. Luckily, I can get it filled via the mail order option for 90 days. However, the postman didn't ring the doorbell and left it sitting on the porch. It's in a big insulated cooler, but still. That's a crazy expensive package to just let sit around. It was almost $2,000 worth for the insulin alone.

When I was first told I would have to be on pain medication for the rest of my life, I was extremely worried about addiction.  My doctor told me the very fact that I mentioned it before I he had even written the prescription made him pretty sure I would not become an addict.  I said after a certain amount of time of taking them, my body is going to crave them and I will go through withdrawal issues if I stopped taking them, correct?  And he said there is a difference, in his mind, between addiction and dependency.  He said I would be dependent on them, just like a diabetic is dependent on their insulin.  I would depend on the pills the rest of my life to ease the pain.  Semantics.  Call it what you want to, I needed them just as much as an addict did.  

After what I just went through when I could not get my pain meds after moving to Oregon, even with a full prescription sitting in the pharmacy back home in California with the same insurance, Kaiser, it showed me just how horrible it must be for actual addicts and helped me to understand why they would break into houses and rob people on the street to get money for their next fix.  The feelings you go through are that compelling.  I used to hate them too because their misuse made my actual use much harder.  But now I have sympathy for them because their withdrawal feelings and my withdrawal feelings are surely no different.  I would have done just about anything to stop mine, I was getting that desperate.  I am too law abiding to ever consider stealing, and having the money wasn't my issue, it was acquiring the actual pills.  If I had a friend that was an actual dealer, I can't say I wouldn't have called them and paid whatever their price was just to get a few pills to help me over that one Thanksgiving weekend when my pain was at its worst.

And now that I am with an Oregon doctor and should not have to deal with that again, I am still uneasy about taking what I have.  The instinct is to set aside a pill as often as I can to protect myself should something go wrong again.  I never felt that until this move.  I was saving a pill aside, with my doctor's knowledge, and it is a good thing I did because of what transpired here.  But now that all that is over, I can't seem to shake the paranoia feeling of having my supply stopping again.  And honestly, I feel like the level of relief that I am getting from taking them on schedule like I did for almost 20 years isn't as good as it was before the move.  I know rationally the pills are exactly the same, but the relief doesn't feel at the same level.  I am now supplementing my prescribed pain medication with OTC ibuprofen from Costco.  I never had to do that before.  And I hope that when I become comfortable here that I can stop doing that.

FrozenPea, you now not only need a fresh written 30-day prescription from you doctor each month, you need to request insurance approval every month before they will authorize filling it?  That is insane!  Who is supposed to request the preauthorization, you or your doctor who is writing the script in the first place?  Whoever is the person that handles the preauthorization must be furious at the increased workload from this is that is their policy across the board.  I'm sorry that there is now another hoop for you to jump through just to try to live a normal life.  Have you changed insurance at all or is this the same company that has always been the ones to pay for your meds?  I know when the doctor here authorized my meds, they would only give me a week's worth, enough to last until I got in with a doctor here.  And they made sure I got in to see the doctor before that week was up.  I was extremely grateful for that.  I pray that Kaiser keeps covering my meds.  The pharmacist here told me they approve 28 days at a time since not every month has 30 days in it.  It makes it easier to remember that I pick up my new meds on the 28th day of each month.

gracieplusthree, what reason is your doctor giving you for limiting your pain mediation?  That is just wrong!  You should not have to live like that.  Ask to see a pain management specialist.  When I changed jobs, my new insurance was Kaiser and they required me to meet with a pain management specialist before they would continue writing me for the Vicodin I was taking on my previous insurance.  He asked me if what I was taking was working for me and I told him, no, I hated it.  I explained the pain that I went through as each pill wore off and the next pill hadn't kicked in yet.  I was taking them by the clock not by my pain needs because I would have ended up taking too many if I took one when my pain became unbearable again.  I knew how many I was allowed per day and then figured out how many hours I needed to allow between pills and I stuck to that religiously.  He asked if I wanted to try a time-released pain medication instead, one pill every 12 hours.  Are you kidding me?  I didn't know such a thing existed. 

He wrote the prescription for it and I'm telling you, it gave me my life back.  He also wrote for some Vicodin to cover the change over period between taking the two time-released pills per day.  Honestly, it gave me such relief and hope.  Prior to learning about time-released pain meds, I had told my fiance that I couldn't guarantee that I would be able to live out my life the way it was going, being in so much severe pain several times a day and being woken up during the night when the Vicodin wore off as well.  And like you, I was working full time with that horrendous pain.  I hated my life.  With the time-released, I was finally able to sleep undisturbed for an entire night.  It was heaven!  Please, please, talk to your doctor about putting you on something like I am taking.  Honestly, it will change your world.  Tell him you are happy to see a pain management specialist and submit to as many urine tests as they wanted, but you cannot be expected to go on like you are.


 

Hubby has terminal cancer and is on methadone and hydrocodone. He cannot get refills - the doctor has to call them in each and every time he needs more. Because the cancer is in his bones, he is in tremendous pain at times and never is without some kind of pain reliever in his system. We just make sure that he always has enough to get through the rough times. As he is not limited to how many he can have in a refill. So far he is not taking the whole amount prescribed. We have a hospice doctor that we have to call every month to get his refills. It took planning and forethought at first to make he never had to go without. But now we have managed to stash aside a few here and there to give us a little leeway when we might need it. (It helps that I just have to leave a message for the nurse with the info needed.)

But, I can see why it has become necessary. When they first started putting extra requirements in there were very few friends of ours who did not have some sort of heavy duty pain reliever on hand "just in case". And of course they were always ready to share to friends who might need something if their back went out, or they pulled a muscle. That is how habits get started at times.

Being in my 70's I have seen regulations come and go about different medications. It used to be almost impossible to get Nexium, yet now you can get it over the counter. It was so expensive, that insurance co's did not want to pay for it. This is just one of the ways lawmakers and others want to interfere with your right to discuss with your doctor what you need and be able to get it once prescibed. (no, I am not goint to get into the abortion issue here.)

There was a time in the early history of opium when only the rich could afford it cause once you were hooked you could not work and ended up on the streets, your family starved and you literally died. Nobody stepped in and supported you and your family if you could not work due to drug addiction. So Darwin's theory worked to weed out the addicts. I am not advocating this, just throwing this out there as to what worked in the past.

I absolutely understand you there.  When I was in agony a few weeks ago, I felt like you did too.  I blamed addicts too.  You have very little ability to feel compassion for anyone when you are in severe pain.  Pain makes everything look different.  Small irritations are magnified.  Nothing else feels as important as getting someone to make your pain stop.  And as difficult as we know it already is to get relief, to have another hurdle tossed in front of you with no advanced warning is bound to push you over the edge.  I’m sorry you have to deal with this.

Ask to see a pain management


It'll probably come to that actually. I think right now is a more limited amount because of the hoops needed to jump though. To get more would require more Dr visits and urine tests and insurance approval etc more often.

** oops didn't tag this right

I should have included that, sorry!  I'm on time-released morphine.  Just two little pills over a 24-hour period and you feel almost like a human being again.  Prior to all this opioid problem, I was taking two pills in the morning and two at night, but Kaiser cracked down on all opioid prescriptions and put a limit on how much my doctor could dispense.  I was quite scared at living with pain again, but it wasn't as horrible as I feared it might be.  Before the cutback, I would say my pain wa basically a zero, midday when the pill was well started and not yet ready to dissolve completely and be out of my system.  Now, I would say the most relief I can get is a 3 out of 10, which is so much better than the full 10 or even what feels more like a 12 some days.  
I would think other types of pain medication come in a time-released version as well.  I am only familiar with the morphine version.  That is the only kind I've ever been prescribed.  

I'm not sure what prompted this, but for the last couple of years, my psych doctor has required me to have an telemed visit for a refill every 2-3 months. For commonly prescribed SSRIs. The visits are about 10 minutes, and cost $125 each even with my insurance. They say the insurance requires them to meet with me to refill the meds. So in addition to the cost of my meds, I'm paying several hundred dollars for the privilege of refilling them. 

I'd switch doctors but we all know the difficulty of finding mental health providers and the PITA of starting over with a new doctor in any specialty.

I find it frustrating and somewhat ridiculous that people have so much trouble and have to jump through so many hoops to get treatment.

We all know that the stricter rules and insurance company requirements have had an impact on people who need meds for their health problems. But what impact has the tightened up rules had on the addiction and misuse issues? Has it helped or not?