My excessively dry eyes have been giving me fits for years. I have tried to stave them off with gallons of lubricant drops purchased OTC.

We finally got some Restasis drops which should help. We had been quoted all sorts of ghastly prices, as much as $00 -$500 for a 30-day supply. When se got right down to it, it was less than $150 for a 9- day supply. I just hope the bloody stuff works.

I won't even go into the screaming that has been going on between the insurance company, the pharmacy, and me. Our pharmacy is a group of top-notch folks who have known us for years, Every time I get back from my visit with the renal nurse Maurice, the chief pharmacist, ask what are certain numbers from the latest report. He isn't just being nosey. He wants the latest possible info in file, for maximum efficiency.

We have a great relationship with the people in the pharmacy. We know every one of them by name, and they know us on sight. They even know our voices on the phone.

These guys are looking out for us. I just got a 90-day supply of stuff I have needed for excessively dry eyes. (I was told recently that the surface of my left eye looked like "parchment." Not encouraging. No EFFING wonder they hurt. This has put a serious crimp on my non-stop book devouring.

But we have had a breakthrough. One of the pharmacists in our group managed to get her hands on a 90--day supply of the drops I have needed, for less than $200. (We had been told that it would be between $400 - $500, so this was a break.

She said that it will be several weeks before I will notice much of a change, so I will bear this in mind. I am keeping everything very precisely recorded. It would be lovely if my eyes were back in working condition again.

I can't speak too highly of our pharmacy group. We all know each other on sight, and they know that we are authorized to pick stuff up for each other, and that stuff about the other can be disclosed to the spouse. We all know about HIPPA rules and are very careful to abide by its rules.They recognize our daughter, and know that she is authorized to pick up stuff for us, too. It's THAT kind of community.She is trained in HIPPA rules too, so they tell her stuff they think we need to know.

The pharmacist says that it will be more than a months (probably two or three times that) before the new medication will really show what it is capable of what it can do. (All I can do in the meantime is to use it exactly as prescribed and fervently hope that it works as it is supposed to.)

it is so nice to know that these nice (and competent folks) are in our corner. They seem to like us, too, so they often offer suggestions for maximum utilization of a particular medication, stuff like that.

I'm looking forward to feeling more human and less like a used sock. SusieQ's example is there in front of me, lighting the way. You guys are a huge support group, and I love you ALL!!




zed

Used sock. LOL

Happy to hear, catnip. You're right. It sure ain't easy.

google Blepharitis

Oh wow. What a hassle. Glad to hear you're getting the right medication. I have a long list of "Do Not Administer" so I have to make sure everyone pays attention.
I've found that the pharmacists have the best info. I'll follow the pharmacist rather than the doctor if the directions don't agree.
I have an adult daughter with several medical conditions, (one is an Immune Disorder), that require expertise that many in the medical fields don't seem to have. Consequently, she has to stay on top of everything.
I've had some dry eyes after reading a long time, then sleeping, but drops don't seem to make a difference.
The old saying: "Getting old is not for sissies," is still true!

I'm glad that one of your pharmacists was able to find a 90-day supply of the drops for a not too outrageous price. Hopefully they will help.

I look forward to retirement, but I just hope that physically I will be able to do everything that I want to do. Sometimes I feel that work is draining the best years out of me.

Work does drain the best years of our lives.

The golden years are what's left over. I hope to have the energy to pick up and move when that time comes. Still need to get my house staged before listing it for sale. Downside is my home is where I want it to be, after living in it nearly 20 years. It's my renovations and home improvements after living in it. My trees have grown tall since planting them, and I stand in awe each time I look at them. My newest addition this year is named Junior, since it was placed near Senior that was also planted as a sapling. It now towers in the backyard. It started growing pine cones just since last year, now it's matured.

A part of me wants to stay put. Maybe I'll snowbird at first before taking the plunge and uprooting myself.

Then I remind myself it's just a house. Still, it's my home.

I have "good" insurance but it now only pays a fairly small percentage of prescription costs.

Between expensive eye drops to save my vision and replacement drugs to buck up pituitary functions, I'm paying many thousands of dollars a year more than I did several years ago.

I order what I can from a Canadian pharmacy which isn't covered by my insurance but is still a better buy. That helps somewhat. But some of the pills can have flecks of strange gray specks in them. Another time they had gouges like the edges of cookie dough not big enough for a cutter. This meant I couldn't use one pill as a whole dose.

The pharmacy says they don't control manufacturing practices and if I send back suspicious pills, they might or might not reimburse me. I can't send them back because I desperately need to take them to survive.

My eye doctor says there's no way he'd want me to order eye drops which might not be real and there would be no way to know it until my eyesight was damaged. So I just keep paying high prices for poorer products and delayed service because sometimes it takes more than a month to receive an order which can come from anywhere on earth although it was ordered in Canada.

I am disappointed that so much of health care expenses are more about insurance companies and big pharma making deals to hold us hostage.

The large international "health care" pharma company I work for makes different "deals" with different countries to get access and licensure. It's been an eye opener.

Add to that the money from insurance and pharma industries (and lobbyists) invested to gain power and money by buying politicians. Meds are massively expensive because they can get away with it. Much of the money goes to the CEOs and politicians. They fund studies that support the products they want to be big sellers.

While they try to make us believe they are mostly investing in R&D and employees, they are actually busy buying competitors, lobbying against any regulations they can, and funding huge golden parachutes for the corporate heads. I have stock options too so I'm beginning to see how the game is played even at my level in the corporation. Corporations act like they are doing everyone a huge favor by offering health insurance and let us know how much it costs them on our behalf. However, they want it that way so people can't afford to get health insurance independently.

This system is hurting people like catnip. I am frustrated seeing corporations rewarded and fewer people able to afford even a deductible.

I think I am finally to the point where I would prefer to deal with long waiting periods and all the problems that would come with one provider health care. To me, it is time to remove the layer of insurance companies that hold us hostage. It's time for entrepreneurs to have access to individual insurance in stead of being held hostage by their job to get health insurance.

Honestly, catnip should not have to be out there wheeling and dealing and losing her life savings over eye drops. A company will pay millions to a celebrity to peddle eye drops on TV so people like catnip and me get gouged.

Thanks for letting me rant. I hope your eyes feel better soon.

I agree, Dagny. IMO we need single payer so that the government can negotiate drug prices on our behalf, such as happens in Canada.

A good friend of mine has complex health issues including an immune disorder. She moved from the U.S. to England, seeking improved health care from their national health system. She has been very happy with her decision, has told me that she's never felt better, and that she gets her needs well taken care of.

I'm hoping that one day the U.S. will wake up from the illusion that we have the "best" health care system in the world. We don't.

He said there are negotiations happening now which are giving more business and better prices in the US. He said some Canadian pharmacies are feeling the pressure and some of them have already folded if they based most of their business on US orders.

and I have good insurance BECAUSE I haven't divorced my ex. BUT I won't when I have to go on Medicare. I guess I should get as healthy as I can, but there will always be something as we get older.

I have just watched the mess insurance has become. Obamacare to me was a total joke. My daughter has lost a lot of money, but never uses what she has to buy. My son doesn't have to pay as much. My neighbors have had to go on Medicaid. My boss pays $1200 a month for her 2 kids and herself and husband. She is the business owner. She no longer provides the so-so insurance she used to, but now pays the penalty for not providing her employees with insurance.

It is RIDICULOUS.

You'd never believe what someone close to me pays for ONE DRUG per month.

We also have to consider that more and more healthcare is going to be clinics. I type for a few and they have many P.A.'s to 1 or 2 doctors, and you make an appt with the clinic and you get whatever provider is next on the list the day you show up. You get a different one each visit, but we're paying much more than Canadians (my boyfriend's daughter has become a Canadian resident, she went to college there and stayed).

I waited 5 months to see a rheumatologist and then he didn't show up that day.

AND if your doctors are missing a lot of days, they are on a pharma paid vacation at a golf course in Florida or somewhere like that.

Just wondering here - Once you are on Medicare, won't the insurance coverage you have now, via your not-quite-ex, offer Medicare supplement insurance? Don't rule this one out.

About 6 months before you turn 65, you'll start getting offers for Medicare supplemental coverage from insurance companies you never even HEARD of.

After I retired, I chose a good coverage plan (via my employment package) and was able to chose from about half-a-dozen different plans for Medicare supplement.

Just for the general record, the eye drops I got DO seem to be helping with the chronic dry-eyes situation. I have to use about half of what is in the little single-use vials, which are still about half-full after use, but the eye doctor was VERY specific about not saving the other half for use 12 hours later. (I would definitely do this if he had not been so specific about it. I see no reason to throw away good medication. But he said that after 12 hours, without preservatives, the drops can degrade in quality.)

Catnip, I have very good Blue Cross insurance right now through my employer. We can keep the insurance after we retire. When I went to a retirement workshop, the HR person said that we can get Medicare supplemental through our employer-offered insurance, but that we should shop around because we might get a better deal. The way she put it, I could definitely tell that she thought there were better options out there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2018 08:49AM by summer.

Correct, Catnip....old age is not for the weak....although we are that....weak.....if I got outta bed and nothing hurt I'd think I was dead!

I don't being old and decrepit.

I'd rather be young and crepit.

I alternate between "agnostic and believer" (but have concluded some kind of faith is probably "more useful"), and I propose we "borrow" an old LDS cliché...

Our message to youngsters out there:

>>As you are, we once were...

Seriously, the Hinkster said he wasn't sure they taught that one any more...

Anyway, we also hope "As we are, you are able to become."

The alternative looks pretty permanent, honest.