Yesterday I came home with a bottle of 30 pills of 250mg of Nuvigil- that I got for free. There is a coupon that you can get from the internet that gives you a month of free Nuvigil- with a prescription, of course. And up to $50 off your subsequent prescriptions for a year.
I had enough reason left to find this website and get the coupon and call my doctor and have him call in the script. That is about all the rationality I had left. Oh- and I faxed him a pre-authorization form, because he couldn't get one from the insurance company, it was busy every time he called.
It hasn't helped that I have been cutting pills. So I couldn't tell what was situational vs. biological, but I have been pretty bad- but very confused. Slipping in and out of occupational therapist mode and crazy person mode. Who am I? I don't even know. And I was taking so much klonopin- quarter milligrams multiple times a day to get through the day. And benedryl at night.
Today I have been much better. Is it the Nuvigil? Is it the fact that I have 30 days to figure things out? Probably both. And I didn't even take any klonopin today. Not that I was fine- I really wasn't. I am still irritable. By the end of the day I couldn't stand still. But maybe that is klonopin withdrawal. But I didn't feel like I needed klonopin.
What was strange was not taking my middle of the day Provigil- I am so used to it. As I was eating lunch, I had this urge to take a pill- because normally I have to be so vigilant about it so I don't forget to take it. It felt like an itch that I couldn't scratch. But I finally got over it.
I am so tired now, I feel drained by everything that has gone on. I want to find out what is happening so that I can appeal if necessary. I think that I have a good case to make. I think that anyone who has been on over 30 psych meds plus ECT can make a good case that they need to stay on something that is working very well. The problem is I don't have dosages and dates, etc. I am 47, I have been on meds since the age of 19. Who would? Especially someone with a mental illness? But that is what they ask for.
Meanwhile the world has gone mad. CNN can hardly decide which shooting or stabbing to cover. The Ebola case in NYC is no longer major news, given everything else happening in the world today.
It seems like Nuvigil should be much less than $900. I paid out of pocket for it for a long time and I think it was $425/month for the higher dose pills. I sometimes was able to get away with breaking them in half; however I also was pretty sensitive to Provigil and would sometimes have to take klonopin to knock down a manic high from the daily provigil dose which I don't believe was high although that was a long time ago. So I may be more sensitive to it than you are since I know I couldn't ever have taken a 2nd dose. I never could get the $50 off because my insurance was denying it and the coupon was only good if the insurance was paying. Which made no sense but that was how it worked then (at least 3 years ago, maybe longer). I did get the annual free script and that was a wonderful thing each time. For a while I had to pay of pocket for Nuvigil and a huge co-pay for Emsam and I had to go to a special pharmacy to get the 2 drugs (the main suppliers didn't, maybe still don't, carry Emsam). I felt like I was spending half my income at the pharmacy. Now I get patient assistance for some many things and I'm scared of what happens when they go generic because I will struggle to pay for them then and Medicare doesn't cover them well. They cap Seroquel XR at about half my daily dose on most Med D plans, Emsam is barely covered and will remain very expensive as a generic, etc. I wonder sometimes if I will be forced to go on less effective meds when they go generic all within a few years. I'm already having to hope for patient assistance if a new anti-psychotic comes out as is expected sometime relatively soon.
ReplyDeleteMeds are so hard. Sometimes they are more burden than help. I have managed to keep an estimated log of what I've been on when, although not the doses and not with full accuracy, but thinking that is reasonable is ridiculous. I only have it because I started tracking on a side-blog so I could track allergies.
You are in my thoughts.
Thanks J. The cheapest Nuvigil I can find is $540. With the fifty dollars off, perhaps it is doable. But it means giving up so many other things.
ReplyDeleteIt there an appeal for the cap? I know that when I was on Medicaid I was often on super high dosages of things and my doctor had to appeal. Even now, my doctor had to appeal for my dosage of Effexor, because it is capped at 300mg and I take 450mg, but now I have private insurance so it may work differently. Also- I have have sometimes found that if I take two different antipsychotics that I can take lower dosages. I did that with Zyprexa and Abilify for a while until I started have problems with the Abilify.