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Because I did not lay out this story for livejournal.
The reason I am all about the bitching about my health right now boils down to: I had to change medications. The new one doesn't work right.
So. Last March I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. (Relevant post is now tagged.) Following doctor's recommendation, I started out with a minimal dose of Levoxyl, brand name, no substitutions, because he said that that particular drug instantiation does not have a lot of crap filler.
This was amazing. I needed to have my dose upped after a bit, but after that I was stable, in the "I might like to bring your TSH down a little more but you're doing well enough that I'm not going to push it; treat the patient not the numbers" kind of way.
There was ongoing stuff, tracking down other subtle and pervasive medical concerns I have (because I do in fact have issues that aren't derivable from the fucking Hashimoto's), with a big pile of bloodwork slated for early summertime to see how that was doing.
In Marchish of this year, I got a letter from my doctor. It said, basically, "It saddens me to have to tell you this but I am leaving the Marino Center, so you will need to either transfer your care to another doctor or join me at Visions. If you need your medical records transferred, please fill out the relevant forms." And I had a fit of "augh, people are changing things" and filed that as something I would have to deal with at some point - I had another couple months of medication remaining, after all, and the bloodwork wasn't until Juneish. So there was plenty of time to sort this shit out, and it wasn't high priority; everything was handled, right?
Ran low on my pills after I came home from Minnesota. Noticed that the automatic refill wasn't automating, poked the pharmacy website to say "No, really, I want my pills refilled."
Got a phone call. Figured it was the robodialer saying my pills were ready; let it go to voice mail. Fortunately, I then checked it.
It was something like, "Hello this is so-and-so at CVS Pharmacy, there is a problem with your prescription. Please call back so I can explain."
Ah, fuck, I thought, and I called them back to try to figure out what nightmare I was embarking upon.
The nightmare in question was: we can't find your drug. Nobody can. It's been falling off the market and is now completely unavailable. We called your doctor to see about getting a substitution, and they said he doesn't work there anymore. We tried calling where he works now, and they said you're not a patient there.
I said I'd get to work on it.
I had one pill remaining.
I called Visions (doctor's assistant) and left a message. I called Visions (new patient line) and left a message. I called the Marino Center and got information about how to get my medical records transferred.
Nobody called me back that day.
I took the last pill.
I printed out the forms for the medical records transfer and gave them to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teinedreugan to fax them in from work.
In the morning, Visions (doctor's assistant) called me back. I believe it was her that told me that the drug had been recalled and that was why it was vanishing, which led me to find some variation on this announcement (PDF link) a bit later. In any case, I signed up as a new patient at Visions with her, got the information about what forms she needed transferred, told her my husband was faxing in the full form for transfer as well, and did that whole song and dance.
Called the Marino Center, talked to doctor's former assistant about getting the medication-specific forms needed for the thing, confirmed to her that the full medical records transfer forms were in the process of clearing through the bureaucracy, and settled in to wait.
And looked up the recall information, and spend a while gibbering over the fact that not only was my medication on recall because the oxygen-absorbing capsules smelled funny, but somehow this issue was sufficiently major as to mean that there would be no more medication until 2014. Whut? (Does this seem really, really weird to anyone else? Since according to the press release and all the problem wasn't with the pills, it was with the thingy that was in with the pills? Anyway. This is a deep well of rage for me, because what the everliving fuck.)
Anyway. Eventually the doctor's assistant called me back to say that the prescription had been properly filed, they were trying me on the generic of the stuff, and everything turned out okay.
Aside from the fact that it doesn't work right for me.
(Or, as this note on the recall says:
)
Heh. Comments on that are... interesting. (Synthroid was what I was on as a teenager.)
I have gone back and tagged a couple of relevant posts with the shiny new 'Hashimoto's' tag. Whee.
The reason I am all about the bitching about my health right now boils down to: I had to change medications. The new one doesn't work right.
So. Last March I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. (Relevant post is now tagged.) Following doctor's recommendation, I started out with a minimal dose of Levoxyl, brand name, no substitutions, because he said that that particular drug instantiation does not have a lot of crap filler.
This was amazing. I needed to have my dose upped after a bit, but after that I was stable, in the "I might like to bring your TSH down a little more but you're doing well enough that I'm not going to push it; treat the patient not the numbers" kind of way.
There was ongoing stuff, tracking down other subtle and pervasive medical concerns I have (because I do in fact have issues that aren't derivable from the fucking Hashimoto's), with a big pile of bloodwork slated for early summertime to see how that was doing.
In Marchish of this year, I got a letter from my doctor. It said, basically, "It saddens me to have to tell you this but I am leaving the Marino Center, so you will need to either transfer your care to another doctor or join me at Visions. If you need your medical records transferred, please fill out the relevant forms." And I had a fit of "augh, people are changing things" and filed that as something I would have to deal with at some point - I had another couple months of medication remaining, after all, and the bloodwork wasn't until Juneish. So there was plenty of time to sort this shit out, and it wasn't high priority; everything was handled, right?
Ran low on my pills after I came home from Minnesota. Noticed that the automatic refill wasn't automating, poked the pharmacy website to say "No, really, I want my pills refilled."
Got a phone call. Figured it was the robodialer saying my pills were ready; let it go to voice mail. Fortunately, I then checked it.
It was something like, "Hello this is so-and-so at CVS Pharmacy, there is a problem with your prescription. Please call back so I can explain."
Ah, fuck, I thought, and I called them back to try to figure out what nightmare I was embarking upon.
The nightmare in question was: we can't find your drug. Nobody can. It's been falling off the market and is now completely unavailable. We called your doctor to see about getting a substitution, and they said he doesn't work there anymore. We tried calling where he works now, and they said you're not a patient there.
I said I'd get to work on it.
I had one pill remaining.
I called Visions (doctor's assistant) and left a message. I called Visions (new patient line) and left a message. I called the Marino Center and got information about how to get my medical records transferred.
Nobody called me back that day.
I took the last pill.
I printed out the forms for the medical records transfer and gave them to
teinedreugan to fax them in from work.In the morning, Visions (doctor's assistant) called me back. I believe it was her that told me that the drug had been recalled and that was why it was vanishing, which led me to find some variation on this announcement (PDF link) a bit later. In any case, I signed up as a new patient at Visions with her, got the information about what forms she needed transferred, told her my husband was faxing in the full form for transfer as well, and did that whole song and dance.
Called the Marino Center, talked to doctor's former assistant about getting the medication-specific forms needed for the thing, confirmed to her that the full medical records transfer forms were in the process of clearing through the bureaucracy, and settled in to wait.
And looked up the recall information, and spend a while gibbering over the fact that not only was my medication on recall because the oxygen-absorbing capsules smelled funny, but somehow this issue was sufficiently major as to mean that there would be no more medication until 2014. Whut? (Does this seem really, really weird to anyone else? Since according to the press release and all the problem wasn't with the pills, it was with the thingy that was in with the pills? Anyway. This is a deep well of rage for me, because what the everliving fuck.)
Anyway. Eventually the doctor's assistant called me back to say that the prescription had been properly filed, they were trying me on the generic of the stuff, and everything turned out okay.
Aside from the fact that it doesn't work right for me.
(Or, as this note on the recall says:
With so many options, why does the recall matter?
Thyroid medications have a narrow therapeutic index (NTI), which means that any change in dose or formulation—including from one brand or generic to another—can lead to significant differences in how your body responds.
)
Heh. Comments on that are... interesting. (Synthroid was what I was on as a teenager.)
I have gone back and tagged a couple of relevant posts with the shiny new 'Hashimoto's' tag. Whee.
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I just. What the fuck. THE PACKETS WITH THE PILLS SMELLED FUNNY? and that means we are out working medication for most of a year?
I tell you what I smell: a rat.
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