The way I see it is
*All* of it is fecking expensive in the US. And you're expected to pay full retail. And their prices probably subsidise ours and the rest of Europe's, but even if you took that into account drugs are *expensive*.

I take two things, one of which is free on the NHS and the other costs me £7.20 a month. If I was to pay full price for both of those, it would cost more than my salary (well, my salary before I went back into studentdom).

And one allows me to function despite a disability, and the other allows me to not take 6 days off sick per lunar month due to lady-woes.

Also, you're exempt from the £7.20 charge if you're on the income-based JSA or if your income is less than 8k/year (I think, it might be 16k), also if it's for diabetes or epilepsy and suchlike. Plus if you get on average more than 14 a year, bulk buying a pre-payment certificate is worth it, and you don't even need to be in financial woe to do it.

I know there are a *lot* of things wrong with the NHS at the moment, but this is not one of them.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 4 Mar 2010, 15:22, 1 reply)

It's not really the cost of individual medicine I take the most issue with
it's the mindset that comes with it- for example, every time I request a repeat prescription I'll be challenged as to why I need meds I've been taking since I was six. Some medicines are simply removed from my prescription without informing me because it's not cost effective, and I have to waste time and effort speaking to a doctor about it. While I'm sorting it out I don't have access to that medicine. It's been suggested that I change to a "cheaper" medicine more times than I can count.

I should point out that I have to take 14 different medicines a day for 3 serious illnesses. All my meds were carefully checked to see if 1. I wouldn't react badly to them and 2. They wouldn't react badly with each other. It took 6 months in hospital and another 2 years of outpatient tests before the combination was found that worked for me. For some pissant receptionist with a bill in her hand and a smile on her fact to suggest changing it is basically a slap in the faces of the professionals who helped to treat me, and the strict maintenance of my medical regime.

And it pisses me off.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 4 Mar 2010, 15:30, closed)

^^^This^^^
I have a condition which is significantly milder than yours sounds, but I have to take a tablet for it every day. One day I get a letter from the surgery telling me that I've been swapped onto another drug, because it had been found to be "effective for most patients" and, of course costs less.
The author of this missive is some minion from the PCT who thinks she knows better than the consultant who swapped me off the cheaper tablets onto the current ones some time ago; a fact that may be discovered from a cursory search of my medical records.
Cue appointment to visit GP, who adopts the classic "not me Guv" stance and won't change it back until I've spoken to the fuckwit from the PCT. A week passes, while my symptoms fail to be suppressed by the cheaper tablets, until an apologetic phone call from the number-crunching office junior means I can finally go back on the tablets that work.
Not bitter though. Much.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 4 Mar 2010, 15:45, closed)

That's awful
Although I'd suggest that you need a half decent GP more than anything else: I have one that fights for my corner quite a few times, especially when secondary care types don't understand drug interactions and thus don't seem to care if I don't get access to the pill in hospital.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 4 Mar 2010, 16:11, closed)

As far as that goes I'm pretty screwed
I'm currently at university and registered with the uni clinic as it's the easiest one to access (on the basis that if something goes wrong I can get myself there without too much stress.) I'm still registered with the specialists, who have written lovely notes to put in my records, but in a student clinic they obviously don't have time to study each case at detail.

When I first got to uni I fought pretty constantly to have my records sent over, and made sure that certain things (like the fact that I'm allergic to pretty much every topical medication under the sun) were on my info. This week I found out that they don't bother checking medications for certain ingredients and "If you're allergic you can always phone us."

...I think the problem's more a communication thing here. Although my mum was refused medication on the grounds that "Michael Jackson died from an overdose, right?" So maybe people are just idiots.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 4 Mar 2010, 20:58, closed)

Switching between PCTs is a pain in the arse like that
I'm sure no pdoc above Banbury actually knows of any treatment for bipolar disorder other than "t'lithium" and "t'Zyprexa".

My personal pet hate in that area: being told "well, don't you know a lot about this?" when I explain what I take and why, including the history. I then have to give them the bombshell that *my* *last* *GP* told me.

Find one person in your uni docs. Only book appointments with that one doctor. Best to find one that isn't part time, so it's easier to get the appointment. Make them remember you, and if you're a lovely soul, they'll also like you.

Doctor's records take up to 3 months to transfer between surgeries as they'll all still done on paper, as you most likely already know, so keep prescription boxes to prove what you've been on - again, I'm sure you already do this. You're entitled to all your referral letters to specialists and copies of the letters the specialists send back to your GP too.

Hopefully, if you find the right GP, almost all of this is unnecessary - most of them know how much the PCT screws them about and know a few tricks to get round them.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Fri 5 Mar 2010, 14:40, closed)