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Yeah, it's ridiculous. I've been taking medication for ADHD since the 3rd grade. Why in the good goddamn should I have to go in EVERY month for a refill for a m

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I've been taking medication for ADHD since the 3rd grade. Why in the good goddamn should I have to go in EVERY month for a refill for a medication I've been taking for over 20 years.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
FollowingTheDao 1y ago
It’s the same thing for me and Klonopin and my psychosis. The Klonopin is the only thing that stops my psychosis yet they only give me 20 tablets at a time and since I’m homeless and driving around it’s really hard for me to get a new doctor and a new prescription. I’ve been taking it as needed for over nine years and they still can’t get it through their thick heads that I’m not gonna abuse it.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- al_borland 1y ago
  I was in the hospital after surgery and was being treated like an addict who was just there to get pills. It was madness. Like I willed by appendix to burst so I could get a little morphine or a xanax, that makes total sense.
- edm0nd 1y ago
  i'm curious, are you homeless because of your psychosis?
  - FollowingTheDao 1y ago
    Yes, I have schizoaffective disorder, Asperger‘s, and myofacial pain disorder they put me on disability about 22 years ago. I used to be able to handle living in apartments on my disability, but rent has gotten crazy so I ended up living in a van which actually ended up being kind of OK. I have episodic psychosis. It’s not something that happens every day. And I’m seeming to manage it with some genetic and nutritional understanding I have of myself so it’s not that much of a problem anymore. I just have to be careful with Covid because both times I had Covid I had the worst psychosis of my life. All my disorders are mostly due to a CBS Deficiency.
    - quibono 1y ago
      I hope things get better, all the best to you
mrandish 1y ago
Yep. For a while there I was able to work with my doctor and pharmacist to get Adderall from my Kaiser health plan pharmacy in 90 day increments but that stopped with the med shortage. Now that the shortage is over they won't do it again. Neither my doctor nor pharmacist know if this is an actual regulation change due to the shortage or just a health plan policy change. If it's a reg change, it'll never go away. If it's a health plan policy, maybe there's hope. The problem is that Schedule 3 meds can't be shipped and must be picked up in person at the pharmacy (where driver's license # must be entered in an extra procedure not required for other meds). Health plan pharmacies have lines, don't have drug store hours and aren't on every corner. The combo of "in person pickup" + "30 day limit", which were enacted by different people at different times for different reasons creates life disruption and a massive waste of time, energy and money (we're all paying for this in increased prices). I've been on these same meds like clockwork for decades. In such cases they should relax either "in person pickup" or "30 day limit" but, we all know, it won't happen. And if I need to travel on a trip or vacation for a week or two, with the 30-day limit there's a 25-50% chance I'll run out of meds and getting special dispensation to refill early requires contacting and coordinating the doctor and pharmacist in a non-automated, out-of-band loop. There's a two day automatic grace period to account for the pharmacy being closed on weekends but when my 30-day window falls on a weekend, I now have to coordinate pickup on an exact day - like I don't have a life outside of this bullshit. All just to get the meds which help me function normally. Being forced to deal with all this for years has made it so I understand the health plan's back-end IT system capabilities (and lack thereof) better than most of their employees. It's still inconvenient for me but I'm one of the lucky ones. My meds are dialed-in and working, I have a flexible schedule and can parse bureaucratic systems. I got diagnosed and stable on my meds back before every ADHD patient was automatically considered a suspected drug abuser - which is ironic because I've never even had a drink, much less used illicit drugs (ADHD and alcohol/rec drugs tend not to mix well and I was diagnosed as a child). Which makes it meta-ironic I'm required to have a drug screen blood test every year to verify I am taking my prescribed drugs and not selling them - as if I got diagnosed in 4th grade as the ultimate long con knowing these meds would become street drugs worth a buck a pill decades later. I can't imagine a new ADHD patient still struggling to find the right med and dosage trying to figure all this out without giving up.
hinkley 1y ago
At least with time release now there's less of a problem of having to sneak to the nurse's office every day at lunch to take medication and have that brat from third period ask you why you're in the nurse's office and what you're taking.
sekh60 1y ago
Since you may sell them if you get them more frequently. Now here's a pack of 30.
- baby_souffle 1y ago
  > Since you may sell them if you get them more frequently. Now here's a pack of 30. But it's already a C/II class medication so the name on the Rx has to match the name on the photo ID and the pharmacy has to keep the records / there are rules for how often C/II medications can be dispensed. If you have a 30d Rx, the soonest you can come back with an Rx for that same medication is ~25d. Regardless, does it matter if I have to re-fill every 30d or every 90d? As long as I'm only in there every 80d to get my 90d supply topped up, how is that any different from a 2d Rx or a 30d Rx being filled every 1d or every 25d?
  - sekh60 1y ago
    Sorry, I was being a little tongue in cheek. My wife is on Adderall for ADHD and the renewal thing is frustrating for sure. Our pharmacy would only let us refill her prescription the day of until our psychiatrist wrote one that said 30 tablets over 25 days. So I get the frustration, I just find it kinda silly that there's all these overblown controls, and then they give a "large" amount when all is said and done. Kinda like security theatre to me, it's just dumb and punishes people that already have a hard time keeping up on appointments and paperwork due to their health.
hombre_fatal 1y ago
I was on a 90 day prescription for ten years (vyvanse) when I told my doctor I was traveling abroad. Insurance doesn’t cover 90 day bottles so it was $300/mo but worth it. Nowadays there’s generic Vyvanse which is much cheaper so it probably makes 90 day prescriptions financially viable? I just moved back to the US and had to find a new local doctor who gives me 30 day scripts so I haven’t asked about 90 day yet. I imagine these pill mills are pretty stingy. It takes a lot of time and calling around to find docs who don’t treat you like a fiend in some way. But we need to count our blessings. People on pain killers need to put up with crazy shit like getting randomly summoned to the office so they can count your remaining pills.
- 1659447091 1y ago
  > I just moved back to the US and had to find a new local doctor who gives me 30 day scripts You may have difficultly getting a 90 day, both the doc and pharmacist have to agree to do it - 3x30 day with 'fill on dates' is more likely. When I had a long out of town trip I was able to get a 60 day script. When I came back the doc sent 60 day script again but the pharmacist wouldn't fill it and only allowed it because what ever code/note the doc added about long term travel. That was self pay so I wasn't even a risk for selling it. Some states won't allow more than 3x30 day. I am surprised you got name brand vyvanse for $300/month, generic is ~$250/month without coupons/discount cards
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    ExpressScripts pharmacy basically mandates 90-day Rx and will mail them to your home. Excellent for people who suffer from ADHD.
    - notfromhere 1y ago
      I don’t understand how this works when legally in many states they can only dispense a 30 day supply
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    Interesting. I got a 90-day bottle from a doc in my hometown until 2022. That's when I moved back to Texas but didn't want to drive all the way to my hometown anymore to see that doc. Now I go to some "psychiatrist" pill mill where they made me take a BS $200 computer test to diagnose me with ADHD (CYA even though I've been taking this drug for 16 years) and they ask me the same goofy questions every televisit (probably more CYA). Yeah, it was $1000-1200 for 90 pills of Vyvanse all that time. GoodRX only knocked it down $200 or so. And the website coupon only applies to 30-day. Now with insurance, Vyvanse is $100 for 30 while generic is $10.
0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
Not to make light of your situation, but women taking birth control have been in this situation forever. It is only recently that over the counter birth control and/or three month allotments have been available.
- elzbardico 1y ago
  And the same people who fight against abortion were the same ones who fought tooth and nail to make birth control hard to access. Go figure!
  - aianus 1y ago
    Who, the AMA? Canada is super pro abortion and definitely didn't have OTC BC when I was in college.
- qingcharles 1y ago
  * In the USA
- aidenn0 1y ago
  You have to go into a doctor every month and get a new paper prescription for hormonal birth control? In the US? 20 years ago, my wife was able to do an electronic prescription, and it automatically refilled at the pharmacy every month. For stimulants, they can't do an electronic refill, so I literally had to go to my doctor, get a paper prescription, then drop it off at the pharmacy, then come back a few days later (because it's usually backordered) every 30 days. Some doctors would write 3 prescriptions with a "not before" date, but others were not willing to do so.
  - hilux 1y ago
    Definitely for Adderall, and possibly for birth control, the regulations vary greatly by state. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if hormonal birth control were to be Federally banned before this White House is done.
dev1ycan 1y ago
This is why I stopped, when I was starting doing internship at my job I was earning "1000", to go to the psychiatrist to get a prescription it'd cost 250, and the 1 month of pills would cost another 250, half my salary in this bullshit... on top of having to go every month which on itself is a burden. Nice joke really, even after I started earning more after the internship period ended it was just too annoying so I stopped entirely, instead since it was work from home I literally spent 24/7 trying to finish my work so basically, "working" (if you have adhd you know that while you procrastinate, you aren't actually "relaxed" enough to go play games or whatever so it'd basically still being in work mode mentally) 16 hours a day.
justinator 1y ago
Are we talking Adderall? I would be amazed if it still works at all on you. It seems research is showing that stimulants work for ADHD, until it doesn't. If it is Adderall, do you cycle on and off, or what's your protocol? (curious is all)
- astrange 1y ago
  If it stops working, take magnesium supplements. (Glycinate or threonate, not oxide.)
- terminalshort 1y ago
  It's worked for me for 20 years
  - justinator 1y ago
    You never developed a tolerance?
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      Yes I did. It doesn't hit like it did when I first took it, but that decline quickly leveled off. I think it also helps that I don't take it on the weekends.
godelski 1y ago
Or how every month the brand changes or you get a slight variation or they give you half the pills but double the dosage, where all of these things requires a consultation with the pharmacist and it's always a 5 second conversation: "This again?" "yep. Any question?" "no" "Have a nice day" For the last few years I think the actual medication I take changes every month. Is it just amphetamine? Just dextroamphetamine? Both (like Adderall)? These aren't the same and effectiveness is at different dosages. And then I got to figure out how to adjust to the specific version and batch as the manufacturing tolerance is within sensitivity range. Not to mention food interactions. And most of this is a solvable problem!
insane_dreamer 1y ago
I'm pretty ignorant of how all this works, never having had to take medication, so I apologize in advance if this comes off the wrong way. But isn't the reticence of doctors a result of the over-prescription of opioids leading to the very serious opioid crisis? Not sure what the correct solution is, but on the one hand we don't want doctors to overprescribe, but on the other hand we want doctors to liberally prescribe without re-checks to make it easier for those who need it to get their meds. That would seem to put providers in a bind.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

FollowingTheDao 1y ago

It’s the same thing for me and Klonopin and my psychosis. The Klonopin is the only thing that stops my psychosis yet they only give me 20 tablets at a time and since I’m homeless and driving around it’s really hard for me to get a new doctor and a new prescription. I’ve been taking it as needed for over nine years and they still can’t get it through their thick heads that I’m not gonna abuse it.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
al_borland 1y ago
I was in the hospital after surgery and was being treated like an addict who was just there to get pills. It was madness. Like I willed by appendix to burst so I could get a little morphine or a xanax, that makes total sense.
edm0nd 1y ago
i'm curious, are you homeless because of your psychosis?
- FollowingTheDao 1y ago
  Yes, I have schizoaffective disorder, Asperger‘s, and myofacial pain disorder they put me on disability about 22 years ago. I used to be able to handle living in apartments on my disability, but rent has gotten crazy so I ended up living in a van which actually ended up being kind of OK. I have episodic psychosis. It’s not something that happens every day. And I’m seeming to manage it with some genetic and nutritional understanding I have of myself so it’s not that much of a problem anymore. I just have to be careful with Covid because both times I had Covid I had the worst psychosis of my life. All my disorders are mostly due to a CBS Deficiency.
  - quibono 1y ago
    I hope things get better, all the best to you

mrandish 1y ago

Yep. For a while there I was able to work with my doctor and pharmacist to get Adderall from my Kaiser health plan pharmacy in 90 day increments but that stopped with the med shortage. Now that the shortage is over they won't do it again. Neither my doctor nor pharmacist know if this is an actual regulation change due to the shortage or just a health plan policy change. If it's a reg change, it'll never go away. If it's a health plan policy, maybe there's hope. The problem is that Schedule 3 meds can't be shipped and must be picked up in person at the pharmacy (where driver's license # must be entered in an extra procedure not required for other meds). Health plan pharmacies have lines, don't have drug store hours and aren't on every corner. The combo of "in person pickup" + "30 day limit", which were enacted by different people at different times for different reasons creates life disruption and a massive waste of time, energy and money (we're all paying for this in increased prices). I've been on these same meds like clockwork for decades. In such cases they should relax either "in person pickup" or "30 day limit" but, we all know, it won't happen. And if I need to travel on a trip or vacation for a week or two, with the 30-day limit there's a 25-50% chance I'll run out of meds and getting special dispensation to refill early requires contacting and coordinating the doctor and pharmacist in a non-automated, out-of-band loop. There's a two day automatic grace period to account for the pharmacy being closed on weekends but when my 30-day window falls on a weekend, I now have to coordinate pickup on an exact day - like I don't have a life outside of this bullshit. All just to get the meds which help me function normally. Being forced to deal with all this for years has made it so I understand the health plan's back-end IT system capabilities (and lack thereof) better than most of their employees. It's still inconvenient for me but I'm one of the lucky ones. My meds are dialed-in and working, I have a flexible schedule and can parse bureaucratic systems. I got diagnosed and stable on my meds back before every ADHD patient was automatically considered a suspected drug abuser - which is ironic because I've never even had a drink, much less used illicit drugs (ADHD and alcohol/rec drugs tend not to mix well and I was diagnosed as a child). Which makes it meta-ironic I'm required to have a drug screen blood test every year to verify I am taking my prescribed drugs and not selling them - as if I got diagnosed in 4th grade as the ultimate long con knowing these meds would become street drugs worth a buck a pill decades later. I can't imagine a new ADHD patient still struggling to find the right med and dosage trying to figure all this out without giving up.

hinkley 1y ago

At least with time release now there's less of a problem of having to sneak to the nurse's office every day at lunch to take medication and have that brat from third period ask you why you're in the nurse's office and what you're taking.

sekh60 1y ago

Since you may sell them if you get them more frequently. Now here's a pack of 30.

baby_souffle 1y ago
> Since you may sell them if you get them more frequently. Now here's a pack of 30. But it's already a C/II class medication so the name on the Rx has to match the name on the photo ID and the pharmacy has to keep the records / there are rules for how often C/II medications can be dispensed. If you have a 30d Rx, the soonest you can come back with an Rx for that same medication is ~25d. Regardless, does it matter if I have to re-fill every 30d or every 90d? As long as I'm only in there every 80d to get my 90d supply topped up, how is that any different from a 2d Rx or a 30d Rx being filled every 1d or every 25d?
- sekh60 1y ago
  Sorry, I was being a little tongue in cheek. My wife is on Adderall for ADHD and the renewal thing is frustrating for sure. Our pharmacy would only let us refill her prescription the day of until our psychiatrist wrote one that said 30 tablets over 25 days. So I get the frustration, I just find it kinda silly that there's all these overblown controls, and then they give a "large" amount when all is said and done. Kinda like security theatre to me, it's just dumb and punishes people that already have a hard time keeping up on appointments and paperwork due to their health.

hombre_fatal 1y ago

I was on a 90 day prescription for ten years (vyvanse) when I told my doctor I was traveling abroad. Insurance doesn’t cover 90 day bottles so it was $300/mo but worth it. Nowadays there’s generic Vyvanse which is much cheaper so it probably makes 90 day prescriptions financially viable? I just moved back to the US and had to find a new local doctor who gives me 30 day scripts so I haven’t asked about 90 day yet. I imagine these pill mills are pretty stingy. It takes a lot of time and calling around to find docs who don’t treat you like a fiend in some way. But we need to count our blessings. People on pain killers need to put up with crazy shit like getting randomly summoned to the office so they can count your remaining pills.

1659447091 1y ago
> I just moved back to the US and had to find a new local doctor who gives me 30 day scripts You may have difficultly getting a 90 day, both the doc and pharmacist have to agree to do it - 3x30 day with 'fill on dates' is more likely. When I had a long out of town trip I was able to get a 60 day script. When I came back the doc sent 60 day script again but the pharmacist wouldn't fill it and only allowed it because what ever code/note the doc added about long term travel. That was self pay so I wasn't even a risk for selling it. Some states won't allow more than 3x30 day. I am surprised you got name brand vyvanse for $300/month, generic is ~$250/month without coupons/discount cards
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  ExpressScripts pharmacy basically mandates 90-day Rx and will mail them to your home. Excellent for people who suffer from ADHD.
  - notfromhere 1y ago
    I don’t understand how this works when legally in many states they can only dispense a 30 day supply
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  Interesting. I got a 90-day bottle from a doc in my hometown until 2022. That's when I moved back to Texas but didn't want to drive all the way to my hometown anymore to see that doc. Now I go to some "psychiatrist" pill mill where they made me take a BS $200 computer test to diagnose me with ADHD (CYA even though I've been taking this drug for 16 years) and they ask me the same goofy questions every televisit (probably more CYA). Yeah, it was $1000-1200 for 90 pills of Vyvanse all that time. GoodRX only knocked it down $200 or so. And the website coupon only applies to 30-day. Now with insurance, Vyvanse is $100 for 30 while generic is $10.

0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago

Not to make light of your situation, but women taking birth control have been in this situation forever. It is only recently that over the counter birth control and/or three month allotments have been available.

elzbardico 1y ago
And the same people who fight against abortion were the same ones who fought tooth and nail to make birth control hard to access. Go figure!
- aianus 1y ago
  Who, the AMA? Canada is super pro abortion and definitely didn't have OTC BC when I was in college.
qingcharles 1y ago
* In the USA
aidenn0 1y ago
You have to go into a doctor every month and get a new paper prescription for hormonal birth control? In the US? 20 years ago, my wife was able to do an electronic prescription, and it automatically refilled at the pharmacy every month. For stimulants, they can't do an electronic refill, so I literally had to go to my doctor, get a paper prescription, then drop it off at the pharmacy, then come back a few days later (because it's usually backordered) every 30 days. Some doctors would write 3 prescriptions with a "not before" date, but others were not willing to do so.
- hilux 1y ago
  Definitely for Adderall, and possibly for birth control, the regulations vary greatly by state. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if hormonal birth control were to be Federally banned before this White House is done.

dev1ycan 1y ago

This is why I stopped, when I was starting doing internship at my job I was earning "1000", to go to the psychiatrist to get a prescription it'd cost 250, and the 1 month of pills would cost another 250, half my salary in this bullshit... on top of having to go every month which on itself is a burden. Nice joke really, even after I started earning more after the internship period ended it was just too annoying so I stopped entirely, instead since it was work from home I literally spent 24/7 trying to finish my work so basically, "working" (if you have adhd you know that while you procrastinate, you aren't actually "relaxed" enough to go play games or whatever so it'd basically still being in work mode mentally) 16 hours a day.

justinator 1y ago

Are we talking Adderall? I would be amazed if it still works at all on you. It seems research is showing that stimulants work for ADHD, until it doesn't. If it is Adderall, do you cycle on and off, or what's your protocol? (curious is all)

astrange 1y ago
If it stops working, take magnesium supplements. (Glycinate or threonate, not oxide.)
terminalshort 1y ago
It's worked for me for 20 years
- justinator 1y ago
  You never developed a tolerance?
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Yes I did. It doesn't hit like it did when I first took it, but that decline quickly leveled off. I think it also helps that I don't take it on the weekends.

godelski 1y ago

Or how every month the brand changes or you get a slight variation or they give you half the pills but double the dosage, where all of these things requires a consultation with the pharmacist and it's always a 5 second conversation: "This again?" "yep. Any question?" "no" "Have a nice day" For the last few years I think the actual medication I take changes every month. Is it just amphetamine? Just dextroamphetamine? Both (like Adderall)? These aren't the same and effectiveness is at different dosages. And then I got to figure out how to adjust to the specific version and batch as the manufacturing tolerance is within sensitivity range. Not to mention food interactions. And most of this is a solvable problem!

insane_dreamer 1y ago

I'm pretty ignorant of how all this works, never having had to take medication, so I apologize in advance if this comes off the wrong way. But isn't the reticence of doctors a result of the over-prescription of opioids leading to the very serious opioid crisis? Not sure what the correct solution is, but on the one hand we don't want doctors to overprescribe, but on the other hand we want doctors to liberally prescribe without re-checks to make it easier for those who need it to get their meds. That would seem to put providers in a bind.