The Best Pain Medication

I asked my doctor what the best medications would be. Of course he said, the Pain
Pump.

But he added, "Atiq is good. Problem with that is that it costs $8,000-10,000 a month."
Maybe he said, "$80,000" Didn't make much difference to me.

It's actually for Cancer but it's used for Chronic Pain sometime.

Wouldn't it be AWFUL

darn!!!! I would hate to have to pay some of these medication bills really I would. I have been so blessed that WC has paid for every script written for me and I've never had one problem. I have heard each of you tell me horror stories of your costs for medications and I cringe at the costs. Only had actually one problem and that was my old doctors fault cause he didn't document the reason for putting me on the Topamax. The Pharmacy told me that if I had to pay for the month script it would be 500 bucks and I about passed out right there. I cannot imagine what my Kadian is running each month or what WC is paying a year for all of my medications. You'd think that they would be thrilled to put the SCS in as in the long run it would actually be cheaper for them. I don't know what the surgery runs but the battery is 50 grand every 7 years. I have a feeling they are dishing out a heck of a lot more for my medications each year over the last 6 years.

Sometimes my husband jokes that I have a million dollar back but I wonder.............

LOL

Hugs

Scarred

Pamela,
I have Actiq & it is very, very expensive. Even at the lowest dose available, at 4 doses per day the generic version costs me $1200/month. It is just awful. I am allergic to adhesive or I would switch to Duragesic. That is the patch form of Actiq. I'm really not sure why anyone in their right mind would use Actiq as a "maintenance" med since it is ultra-short acting. According to the manufacturer, Actiq is supposed to last you 4 hours but I usually don't get that much relief, plus you are only allowed to take 4 per day otherwise you have to up it.

The generic of Duragesic is much cheaper. It is a patch that stays on for 72 hours. I overdosed on it, but it sounds like you have a higher tolerance for narcotics than I do so maybe that would be an option. Also, it is on-label for non-cancer pain so it is covered by most insurance. It is available in generic. I think it runs about $50-100/month before any insurance. Maybe that would be an option for you?

feel better,
frances

hello everyone. 5 years ago I was prescribed Actiq 1800mgs and I know each box of 30 cost about $4000-$5000 but luckly I was still under my dad's insurance and it paid for all but a $10 copay and I could only get one box every 10 days. I was very upset when I turned 21 and I lost my dad's insurance. It worked wonderful for migraines and breakthrough pain. After I lost my dad's insurance and my pain doctor had a breakdown and quit her job, I found a new pain specialist that gave me coupons for 6 actiqs, but she would only give me 2 coupons a month, which is better then nothing, but these where 4000mgs and I remember the cost being about $100 for 6 of them without the coupon. They are very expensive. Even my suboxone is about $700 a month, and it doesnt go to generic til this upcoming october, but I hope to be off of them by then.

-hellokitty

Ok check it out! Went in to get my refill on my Kadian and of course my script ins which WC in all their infinite wisdom has decided to outsource to some stupid company that needs to review every stinking script that I fill halted filling my script once more so that they could review it because it was over $1,000.00. I thought to myself "My god! Its only 78 pills!!!!" So I asked the pharmacist how much it is for a full 30 day script of my Kadian and she smiled and said $2,584.39. I freaked out and about had a heart attack right there on the spot! Are you kidding me? How in the heck can Medications cost this much money? I know for a fact it does not cost that much for them to manufacture them. How can they charge that much for all these medications? What makes the pills that expensive?

Confused and flabbergasted

Scarred

OMG Susie that is terrible!!!!! Highway robbery is what it is! I don't understand how they can jack up the medications that much and get away with it. I truly believe that we ought to stand up and start using our voices to say "Hey this is crap and we aren't going to take it any more!" Cause if we don't they will just continue to screw us. I would hate to think of having to pay for my medications out of my pocket on my own. I know my Kadian is expensive now (Hell that alone would break me!) and my sister is on Topamax for her migraines she dishes out 600.00 a month for them cause she has no insurance but I don't know how much a month the Robaxin, Lunesta, lexipro or percocet are. I bet that I would be dishing out per month.......just guessing 3-4 grand. Man if WC ever doesn't pay the Medications I am so screwed!! My insurance through hubby's work is BC/BS of KS and I know they will consider my back a pre-existing condition so they probably won't pay anything so it would more then likly have to come out of our pocket.

Just scares the pants off of me to think.....I do feel bad for those of you that have to pay for your medications on your own. Wish I'd win the Lottery I'd pay for everyone that has CP medications for the rest of their lives and make sure that they didn't have to worry at least about that.

hugs to all

Scarred

These costs are crazy. The pharmaceuticals can afford a lot of lobbyists in Washington. That's why they don't like people getting medications in Canada - even if these are as safe as those made here. I know they put money into research, and I'll give them that, but it can't be THAT much. The government also funds a lot of this research, so I'm not crying for the pharmaceuticals, that's for sure.

This is something we could lobby our Washington representatives about!

PaLady

my mom used to work in a drs office at a hospital & she said the pharm. co. would give bonuses & vacations to drs for prescribing their meds.

Well, my view won't be popular.

How many false trails do the pharma companies' research go down before they hit on the right formula?

How many lawsuits do they have to defend against?

I think they are raping us, as well, but their costs of doing business are astronomical too. And the stuff they are coming up with to help people is just too incredible. Eventually there will be an honest and generic cure for cancer. The question is, will it come from cancer research or from some other research?

Yes, I think they are in it for the money more than humanitarian reasons. In all honesty, we are probably being gouged while they are at it.

Without 'them', though, my life wouldn't be worth living and I'd probably have given up a while ago.

So I'll cheer them while fighting them, I guess.

I too agree that you have to take into account R&D but Please.....there has to be a limit here. I mean come on at what point does the cost of the medication and the cost of research become totally intolerable for the patient? What I mean is if they jack up the price to allow for R&D to the point where people cannot afford the medication then isn't that just biting off their own hand? To many seniors are going without food so that they can afford their medications is that fair? Most pharmacies will offer them a discount but it is so small that it really doesn't help much and I know for a fact that there are many that have to pay some of their cost of their scripts out of pocket.

I pray that I will never have to pay for my pain meds....cause I tell you what my friends....I will have to suffer through the pain. There is no way I will be able to afford mine.

Hugs

Scarred

Ace,
Yes, generic Duragesic is called fentanyl citrate patches. Each medication affects different people differently. Often narcotics can cause drowsiness. For me, fentanyl makes me much less drowsy than other meds, but that may be in part due to the fact that I am allergic to everything else. There are meds to treat drowsiness, but I agree that the ideal would be to not have any drowsiness in the first place. It is a difficult balance to get the meds at a point where they help enough with the pain that some activity is possible, without going to the point where you're so sleepy you can't stay awake to do any of that activity. Personally, I have been happy to take advantage of surgeries & such to get the pain under control, but I know Pamela is not comfortable going that route so I was trying to suggest another alternative. It's not perfect but hopefully it will give her a bit more relief than what she currently gets.

Tony,
I do agree with you & everyone here that R&D is expensive. Furthermore, I have long been in favor of putting some more restrictions on litigation to limit frivolous suits or outrageous pain & suffering judgments b/c I know that some of the cost results from that. I think class action suits ought to require people to "opt in" so that litigation settlements don't end up just lining the pockets of plaintiff class action attorneys. That said, I did work for a while in the patent department for a major pharmaceutical company so I do get that they need the opportunity to recover R&D costs to motivate investment in research. I do, however, feel that once a drug goes generic that the name-brand company should not be able to direct the cost of the generic. I'm sure there are people who benefit from Fentora. A lot of people complain about cavities from Actiq, so there is certainly plenty of demand for the drug.

My problem is that R&D costs were almost certainly recovered already on the Actiq. Pharma companies price name-brand drugs so that they can recover those costs before the patent expires. What they've done by setting the price on the generic is basically eliminate the competition on their currently patented product, Fentora. To require the generic Actiq be sold at roughly the same price as the name-brand Fentora is really nothing more than a back-door way of encouraging more people to try Fentora than would otherwise do so if the generic Actiq were sold for 1/4 of the price. I stand by my statement that it is unjust what they're doing. Charging a lot of money for a name brand drug is one thing, requiring generic manufacturers to overcharge for their version just to keep pace with the cost of newer name-brand drugs is not right.


Scarred,
They would only be "shooting themselves in the foot" if the prescription insurers stopped paying for the cost of the meds. My prescription insurer does negotiate a $100 discount on the generic Actiq to get it from $400/box down from $500/box. Until it stops being covered by prescription insurance, these drug companies will keep charging high prices. However, often when an insurer refuses to pay for a particular drug to to the high price, people file complaints and/or lawsuits against the insurance company to force them to pay. So, in a way, I guess we have those lawsuits to blame for the high price of drugs. But Tony does make a decent point: if they can't charge enough to recover costs, the drug companies just will stop doing so much research and there won't be new drugs.

_____
So, I'm not really sure what the answer is. I'm still against generic prices being set by the brand name's company, but other than that I'm not really sure what we can do. I have chosen to honestly face my situation & go to the local food pantry (which fortunately still has food), but I know not everyone has a stocked food pantry near by. If we can find solutions so many of the world's most complex problems, I feel like we ought to find a way to be able to lower the cost of generic medications, but perhaps that is just naive & idealistic. :(

peace,
frances

Post Edited (Frances_2008) : 2/13/2009 7:03:03 PM (GMT-7)

I have to get on my soap box on this subject as its a sore one with me.

Of course working for Plaintiff attys my working years I see things at a different angle than someone not in the legal community. I don't really know of any friviolous lawsuit ever being filed against a pharmaceutical company by an individual. The cost of litigating a lawsuit of this nature is staggering. You have to hire independant experts that comes with a price tag of thousands of dollars. I am not talking a couple of thousand either. An attorney has to look at the cost factor because of the expense involved. These people you pay up front not later. It may surprise many of you to learn that the US is the last country to ever remove a dangerous drug from the market. England and other countries will remove a drug immediately, yet for some reason the US will leave it out there for up to two years. Our FDA is in dire need of an overhaul, just recently there has been some scuttle butt going on there.

Now we have caps placed on many different type of litigation. This was to reduce the costs of insurance for consumers, the studies showed that fizzled. They proved it was not lawyers & plaintiff's driving up the cost of insurance. One of the big moves was in medical malpractice here in Tx. Drs were not able to afford the premiums, so what do we do, we put a cap on lawsuits. Several years later the studies proved that made no difference in the cost of insurance for drs. They deliberately send the public off on wild goose chases. Once again, I have been directly involved in medical malpractice cases and the cost to perfect one of these is unbelieveable. Its not as simple as filing a lawsuit and thats it. If it had only been that simple. But the very ones that scream the loudest against litigation many have sued on the very same subject they are screaming about. I know for a fact everyone on this forum if they had a dr say cut the wrong foot off or was negligent in causing a life long disability, don't think for a moment you wouldn't be beating down the door of some attys office wanting that dr to pay for his mistake.

Our drugs are so overpriced in this country. There is no balance any where when it comes down to it. The drug companies know there is a demand and as long as there is a demand we will always have staggering costs. When I did Remicade infusions for my crohns, they used 4 vials of Remicade, billed my insurance a little over $11,000 every 4 weeks. I did my infusions as an outpatient at the hospital. Over 80% of the bill was the charge for Remicade, this was the hospital jacking up the cost of the Remicade. Now, I am on Humira and its more than I get a month in SSD.

I have many different thoughts on cures being discovered. Oh, I think we have many cures available but it would be too costly for the researchers, they would lose too much funding, its all political and the peons don't win those wars. They would lose millions if they came forward with cures even for cancer.

Scarred can't believe your sister-in-law found a lawyer that took her case. We use to get calls all the time from people wanting to sue because the surgery did not take their pain away. Hello, thats listed on the risks and complications sheet. Not in the least bit surprised she lost her case either.......Susie

The goal of pharmaceutical companies is NOT to produce drugs which cure disease, but rather to produce drugs which people will have to take every day for the rest of their life. Susie is right, it is all about the money. One of my professors used to work at a pharmaceutical company. While he was there, the company developed a drug which they found to cure, completely cure, a different disease than the one they were developing the drug for. This drug was never marketed. It was concluded that too few people suffered from the disease, and therefore the drug company would not make much money from it. Pharmaceutical companies as a whole do not care about the people, they do not care about ending suffering, they care about making money. Perhaps some of the scientists care, but their small voices are insignificant in the long run.

My grandfather always believed that the government had a cure for cancer, a cure that they were withholding from the people, once again, because of the money; cancer is a whole industry in itself.

Skeye