Went to the RD today. He told me the RA is once again out of control. DUH! I could have told you that since I have been without meds for a month and a half from being sick lol. So I was the lucky recipient of bloodwork, xrays, a flu shot, and 95 dollars worth of scripts (and that is with using my co-pay).
He put me on a pred pack. As we know from my last wonderful experience from pred, I do not tolerate it well. However, at this point, I want the swelling, constant stiffness, and pain to just quiet the heck down so I will take the pred and pray I don't get sick. I am armed with hand sanitizer, lysol, and disinfecting wipes. I am so not looking forward to the lack of sleep again and the munchies. Sigh.
I wanted to switch to injectable mtx but that is out of the question. It is covered by neither my rx insurance or my major medical plan. I will not qualify for Medicaid to supplement my insurance as hubby makes too much money. So it looks like I will just have to deal with nausea and dry heaves. My insurance company was so incredibly rude to me today. They said, "Well, you can't expect us to cover everything and that is just too bad it isn't covered." Needless to say I really lost my cool at that point (it was lost before that trying to navigate their difficult phone tree since their website was down) and that person really got the very bad end of my frustration of dealing with them.
To top everything off, someone pulled out in front of me on the way to the docs office and flipped me the bird when I honked at him and had some not nice words to say to me. As I was in not such a great mood as it was, I dropped the car into 3rd gear (I drive a stick shift that has some cajones to it lol), sped up and almost rammed my car up his butt. Classic road rage today. I don't normally drive like that tho. AND THEN my daughter dropped an ENTIRE plate of meatballs that she was cutting up for dinner on the living room floor. Because she wasn't paying attention and watching TV. AUUUUUUUUUUGHGHGHGHG it has just been one of those days!
Hubby only working til 11 tonight. We are going out after work. His work sponsors a bowling league so we are going to go watch them bowl and shoot some pool. Well he is going to shoot pool. I can't hold the cue or my hands steady enough at this point to shoot. I am going to get some much needed out time. I am going to be good and no alcohol since I took my mtx with supper.
Hope everyone is feeling well and had a great day.
Gramma,
I'm sorry you are feeling bad. I have to admit, your post made me smile and laugh. Oh how many times I'd like to ram my car up someone's butt.
Phatgirl2
That was a real pistol of a day. Hope you have a little fun tonight.
Ask your rhuemy to stand up for you with the ins company. Often drugs are 'not covered' until a dr stands up for you and says this is what you need. Then they get covered - usually at the highest co-pay amount. (I don't think mtx is all that pricey any more - it is a generic - that will help too.)
Loucorvorin calcium (sp) helped me tolerate the mtx quite a bit. Higher dose of folic also helped.
I finally switched to arava - just went generic end of last year - it works better for me and I can tolerate it really well.
Be a squeaky wheel!
It'll get better! Cheer up! Go pound the neighbors for stress relief.
Sorry you had such a bad day, I have them myself sometimes, guess we all do. I wanted to pass along a tip that may work for you with your insurance company's audimated maze from h**l. A lot of these systems are set up so that if you punch 0 you will be patched straight through to a real live person who can direct your call to where it needs to go. They do not all work this way but most of them do, they just don't want you to know that they do. Try it next time and see if it works for you.
hope you feel much better soon,
jamie
Or they make it "hard" and set it to *0. Lil *&%*ers. :| Trying to trick us all....
Awwwwwwww and how many swear words later were you done? LOL
I will have to wait to pound my neighbors. I don't think I can make a fist right now. However, there are other ways I can get even lol. You should have seen the look I gave the very cute (I can look at the menu I just can't sample or order anything) when he asked me to make a tight fist lol. His saving grace was the compliment on my Packers jersey. Thank you everyone for your kind words and support. Marian...I am going to call my doc when he gets back in town. He is on vacation for 2 weeks now. That was a great idea you had about him bugging the ins. company. PhatGirl...I am so glad I made you smile. I try to find something humorous in everything. I really won't pound my neighbors downstairs. But they do stress me out and drive me nuts. LOL a cranky ogre with a mallet. Hahaha NO ONE ELSE WILL GET THAT. I HAVE TO SHARE MY EXPERIENCE! O.o I'll blog it tonight. Anyone whos wondering about the ogre...check my blog tomorrow morning.
I am going to do that. My normal pharmacy is Walgreens since it is 5 minutes from my house. Hubby is going to take me there today to pick up my blood pressure meds and I will ask them then. I hate this nausea. Breakfast today was chicken noodle soup. If Walgreens is expensive I am going to call my local Wal-Mart. I am not sure if they are doing the 4 dollar generics up here yet. I know they are down south. Would something injectable be cheaper than a pill form? The mtx pill form without insurance is .00 and maybe the injectable is cheaper and that is why it is not covered. Thanks for the great idea Crunchy. Maybe I am assuming because it is injectable it is going to be expensive. I will let you know. We did go out last night. I had a total breakdown in the car when I picked hubby at work last night. He got into the car and I just totally lost it. Felt good to cry but then my make up was trashed lol. Not like it mattered. We go to hole in the wall bars anyways. I am taking it easy today. Just a couple loads of laundry and my breakfast dishes. If you have AAA, they should give you a 25% off prescription discount card. You can even download it off the Internet. Also, Costco, if there's one in your neighborhood has better prices on prescriptions. Again, you check their prices online. Savon/Osco/CVS also allows you to check prices online. It might give you an idea what it costs out of pocket. But your doctor should do an override to get you the injectable MTX because you get so sick. If not, the medical case manager for your insurance should help you. Sorry about the crappy day! I don't think the mtx injectable is very expensive. I have a tier copay, its either , 20 or 40. I got 5 vials of the mtx injection solution for my copay. They did have to order it for me but it only took 2 days. I had to pay for my own syringes but they are like 20 cents a piece, so again, not real expensive! I still get some nausea and the room spins about 2 hours after doing the injection but seem ok the next day. I would cal the pharmacy and ask them how much each of them costs and call your insurance company back, thats just not right!
I took the advice of all you great people and did some online research. I am going to call my RD when he gets back from vacation and switch over to the injectable. It is very cheap to mail order it. Maybe I can take a little bit higher of a dose also. I am on the lowest dose possible now and still very nauseous and dizzy. I don't want to give up the mtx because it works so well in conjunction with the Humira.
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