-*- Kathi -*-
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-*- Kathi -*-
| Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:28am |
Are you able to take coated aspirin for your knee's? My 100 pound dog takes aspirin for his hip displaysia. He use to take an anti-imflamatory we had to get from the Walgreen's pharmacy as it was made for human consumption and then one started being made for dogs so we switched to that. The cost was really high because he took more pills than a smaller dog so we started looking at other medicinal options. Our vet suggested coated aspirin, and to our surprise, they're working the best of anything we'd tried on him.


Latest story...Went to Walgreen's to pickup my new, replacement medication - Bextra.
Once again, my insurance company is screwing around with me. I go through this each time a new medication is prescribed! They told the pharmacy that the doctor had to fax a prior authorization to the insurance company for them to fill it. I hate it when they fool around like this with my life! I called the drug plan, and they told me a different story. I know what the pharmacy said is correct.
So, tomorrow 8AM, I will call the doctor's office, and try to get the message through the dumb receptionist's head! I left the pharmacy number yesterday at 9:30AM so they'd have it to call in the prescription. This morning around 10AM I got a call for the pharmacy number! I just can't win for losing.
I have 1 pill left from my neighbor who has rheumatoid arthritis. I don't believe in taking anyone else's medication, but I was desparate on Saturday. I've been only taking one a day to just take the edge off. Unfortunately, I've been taking Darvon to try to sleep and I'm so worried about it's becoming a habit.
I wish my life was different. I'm not coping very well right now. Think I'll go to bed early and hope that I'll be able to sleep.
Thanks again for caring.
I usually end up going back to entericoated aspirin, which does not disolve until it gets to the intestine. It is slower to start working BUT it doesnt burn out my stomach. supposedly there is also a ibuprofren type of prescription med that is also entericoated. Every stronger meds have had bad side effects for me, so I have tried to use other "fixes". My insurance also jerks us around about getting meds for what they consider "old age" type of problems....like for me to need that type of pain med, i have to be at least 65 years old.
For very short term and not hassle free pain relief, I will sometimes switch back and forth from hot packs to cold packs. If its the hands, i will stand with hands under hot water and then a little bit later, under cold water. Usually though I find often cold can ice the sharpest pains and heat helps the other kind.
I have found that sometimes if i can do some type of exercise(not one that makes the joints worse) it seems like our own body pain killers will kick in at least some. Sadly for me the one that really seems to stir up my own pain fighters is the elliptical machine and sometimes that seems way to hard to start.
Is Bextra also the same type of med as Vioxx? They are now hinting that this may be a problem with more than just VIoxx. I know for the migraines I have imitrex but i dont trust it. I can cause the same type of problems, and although they have come out with newer meds in the same family everyone has raised potential heart risks.
Thankfully I have absolutely no loss of feeling in my limbs(at times I regret that BUT) it does mean there is less risk with using heating pads, ice packs etc. One caution I would make is if you trying running hot water on your hands(if those are painful)make sure that your water heater is NOT set too high, if you have super hot water it can be hard to get it adjusted so it is hot enough without being too hot.
Sometimes using relaxation exercises can help. sadly that sometimes takes time to get skilled at that. One of the more useful cassettes I found(which is now on CD) is called Letting Go of STress. its by Emmett Miller(sometimes also listed under Steven Halpern who does the music). But the 3rd track on it is called A trip to the Beach and when all else fails, that sometimes helps me to get the pains down to at least tolerable levels.
Ok, start again...Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I have a couple of Steven Halpern's tapes I used to use for progressive relaxation with my clients. I'll have to dig them up to use for myself, huh?
The hot/cold works, but the relief doesn't last all that long.
Got my medication finally tonight. The pharmacist said that the drug companies were running tests on all Cox-2 meds. She said not to worry, though. I think I can take it for 2.5 wks until I see my rheumatologist. It'll take a couple of days for me to reach the therapeutic level. Hopefully the pain with be greatly lessened by then.
I've been quite upset with his medical assistant. I know Walgreen's faxed the request to them early Tuesday afternoon because I saw the confirmation. I called the doctor's office Wednesday and was told it had been faxed. Called the insurance company--nada!
Called the doctor's office Thursday early afternoon and was told it had been faxed. I asked if I could get some samples. When the medical assistant called me back at 4:30PM,
she said she hadn't faxed it yet. The insurance company had given me a direct fax #, a person's name and to have them put "urgent" on the fax. The MA acted like I was putting her out! Gosh, asking her to do her job...how dare me!
I called the insurance company about 1PM today (Friday) to see if it had been rec'd, and was advised they'd not rec'd it yet. She said she'd call me when it was rec'd and leave a message since I was on my way to another doctor's appointment. She took the time to call me before she left for home...and on a Friday afternoon to boot! That was about 4PM. At any rate, it was finally faxed late this afternoon (guess the medical assistant thought she was punishing me).
I was going to talk to the office manager, but she's housed at another office. It probably would only have made me angrier, though. I was ready to drive over to that office yesterday afternoon and throw a hizzy. Just as well...I probably (with my luck) would have thrown a clot or something. I'd had a headache since Tuesday when I started this mess. I'd driven over to their office to ask them to please call in a new prescription for me and left my pharmacy number. This was around 9:30AM; at 4:30PM I rec'd a call asking for the pharmacy number! That should have been a clue to me about what was to come.
I wore my frustration t-shirt today to the gastro's office. It says "If ignorance is bliss, how come more people aren't happy". My doctor laughed. I wasn't sure why my endocrinologist sent me to him. My alkaline phosphotase has been high since my hysterectomy in 1990. In fact, since I was dx with diabetes, the alk pos has gone down significantly. So, I have to get some different kind of bloodwork and another ultrasound. I had one of my belly in 2000 which showed "fatty liver", but my PCP wasn't that concerned about it because I was overweight. I'm not going to go off my rocker about what it could be. I have too many other things that are impacting my life right now.
This is long...sorry. Thanks again for caring and giving me such good suggestions.
Kathi
Can really relate to your frustration. The physicaly I had when i was diagnosed with daibetes included me getting there 2 hours BEFORE the physical so the lab work was done and received. Lab said I could not get it done till AFTER the PHYSICAL. at that point I confess walking the length of a room was all but impossible. i remember walking in to my work office, and having to stop and lean against the stair railing on the way in. So going to a physical with then required about 3 EXTRA trips up and down in the elevator and walking the length of the clinic had me wild. they did give in and ALLOW me to get the tests early(Thankfully...cuz i was about ready to tell them what to do with all of it!!) I am very overweight, so i really hate to ask anyone to wheel me around in a wheelchair...but that day it would have been smarter to do that. Anyway that whole mess I am sure is why my fasting BG level ended up at I think 181!! I have never ever come anywhere close on any fasting levels since. That plus other things have taught me....stress can reall mess up MY BG levels badly. Sadly its a nasty cycle to which I am sure you have found also.
It does sound like it might be smart to plan ahead with your dr. Might not hurt even to plan ahead and say what can we do NOW so if this new med gets pulled I do not have to suffer through this kind of extended fiasco!! If all else fails, if there is even a hint of question on the med you are now on, maybe you can at least get some samples of something else that will work or else insist a note be in your chart so should there be a problem he has already authorized your picking of a sample of some specific other med. Also let him or at least the office manager about the problems you had. There is no excuse for that type of delays!! Also although that little "chickie" (as a former coworker called a similar behaving person) gave you more time in pain....if that continues it could result in some person having even life threatening complications!! Some medical people also can be so stupid when it comes to what being in pain really means!! Other people too(but with medical people it can lead to more health care problems for US).
Anyway, hopefully your pain level decreases and stays down. Your comment on the hot/cold relief reminds me of when i get an abscessed tooth that is flaring. Sometimes I can get the pain to tolerable level BUT only as long as I have ice water in my mouth. BUT water warms fast and even worse...there is NO WAY to talk to someone on the phone with water in your mouth!!! Thankfully that is a type of pain that medical people seem to relate to fast and kindly. In general it does bug me that they do not take that same degree of concern and CARE when its something like arthritis, migraines, back problems, etc. Too many of them seem to think somehow chronic pain either isnt that bad, or somehow we really learn to live with it perfectly well!!
Now that I'm on the Bextra I feel better. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't have a heart attack or stroke!
(((hugs)))
I confess, some of the ads I have seen since they pulled vioxx are really bugging me. Like one they have for I think advil which seems to be trying to say it works as well!!
It does really puzzle me though that it seems like there are SO MANY meds now that have gotten pulled due to the same type of problems...heart and stroke related. That makes me wonder if either the testing to get such meds to the public is missing an important area, need to test longer, OR maybe there are problems with who they are testing. I know in the past they tended to use male subjects and assume the results would be the same for women. Considering the length of time it has been common knowledge that even alcohol has a faster effect on women...that shoulda been a heads up when it comes to medical testing!!
Also wonder if it might be due to drug interactions sometimes.
At least it appears they have decided to test all of the coxy 2 drugs. i mean its NOT nice that you have to sit there and wonder...BUT at least if they test all of them they should find out if the category of meds is safe. also sounds like the risk doesnt start increasing for over 2 years...so hopefully they will already have some quick to find flags to watch for. also since there is a serious question with them...hopefully they will work harder on finder some other better and safer meds.
Am sure there will be very serious conversations between my rheumatologist and me on the 27th about what we're going to do about meds. Haven't decided if I'll discuss the unprofessional behaviors of his MA (or whatever she claims to be). I was in very bad pain for a prolonged period before I finally got the Bextra on the 15th. She lied because she was too lazy to do her job. I'm afraid if I mention what happened I might lose my rheumatologist.
Keep your fingers crossed for me.