Doug had posted his story below in another thread possibly by accident, I have moved it here for reference.
Welcome to the forum Doug and continue posting in this thread with the "Post reply" button.
Dougintoont said...
well I'd first like to say hello to everyone and thanks to the people responsible for this sight. I found this sight trying to find info on the sovaldi drug, i read a couple of posts and thought there is some good info shared here and hope to do the same. my is doug I'm a 51 year old male and live in Toronto ont Canada.
well I'd like to share a bit of history with you all. about 11 years ago I started felling rundown and a little off and was getting this lower right inflammation bloating and a lot of discomfort. after 2 years of countless tests and ibs drugs I went to the hospital one day feeling really lousy they did a ct scan and I was told your appendix look inflamed and this the cause of your problems. ooook who was I to argue. they took them out and about 3weeks later same deal discomfort pain. so after more ibs drugs and no change a doctor did more blood tests noticed my iron levels were fluctuating up and down and sent in for a hepc test, well it was confirmed Toronto western hepc geno1. did 12 months of interferon with ribavirin 4 months past the time they told me when I started due to a high viral count and got a phone call one day from my doc saying stop taking the drugs your virus came back. ya I was pretty upset, I think I got all the side effects and made up a few more during this treatment. it knock the crap out of me. oh they did a biopsy and I was diagnoust with cirrhosis. drank my fair share of beer when I was young but didn't play with the hard stuff to much. I'm sure the hepc did more damage then the beer did, but I'm sure it didn't help. now I'm not ranting but I'm 51 years old and I feel there wasn't enough information to the public on this disease or blood to blood viruses until the aids virus came to light, even then I think hepc kinda took a back seat. I've never had a blood transfusion used needles or have any tattoos. but and I'm not saying by anymeans this is where I got exposed to it but I worked in the machining steel industry for 30 years and pretty much all of us had pic kits sharpened tweezers pins ect in there tool boxes to remove metal slivers that you got quite often. now after reading that the virus can survive for up to 4 days on a object under the right conditions and if your tool box wasn't close by or the persons you were working with used your stuff hmmm really kind of made me think how uneducated we all were and some still are. I think they only started to put latex gloves in the first aid kits as of about 15 years ago for the first aid guys.
ok enough of that lol I was looking around the net for info on the sovaldi drug and came across this sight and noticed I have a fellow clinic brother tony in to, ill have to keep an eye out for any new posts he writes lol. because of liver cancer they do a ultra sound and a consult with my doc every 6 months, I was there about 3 weeks ago and was told of the drug solvaldi taking with olysio for 12 weeks 2 pills a day with minimal side effects and about a 80% or better cure rate. wow I thought what a dream. they asked me about coverage and told me its going to cost about 70,000 oh my god and the drug was on the market for less than a month. so I got on the phone at the clinic I have group insurance from work and they told me ya your covered on both drugs. yeeha. 2 days later I contacted momentum the drug supply for gilead and we had a conference call with the insurance company and was told about a 25000 cap. wish they told me that on the first call. so momentum said I could talk to my work about increasing my drug cap. I told him I haven't worked for sometime and really didn't want expose my situation to them, he said that's fine and didn't seem concered at all. so I phoned anyway wanting to get this moving and the insurance company told my work that everyone on the plan would have to be increased' no individual changes. well with several divisions and over 500 people on the plan that wasn't happening. so i'm at the mercy of the Ontario government I guess and they apparently don't like to give up any info as in if when or where. my nurse told me today that we are waiting on trillium that's an Ontario program that will help low income people after they have exhausted any insurance. I also came across something called eap the exceptional access program. not sure if that's the same as the trillium or not. also seen a post here about someone appealing directly to gilead. you would think that momentum would mention that but then again it might be cutting into there chunk of change. I think we need someone that works on the inside lol. i'll keep looking for any info here and will share anything that might help. thanks for hearing me out dougintoont