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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 9/22/2015 8:03 PM (GMT 0)
if you had even 1/10th of Bill Gates money ?

In todays world of health care, would you have better access to treatments if you were extremely wealthy ?
Posted 9/22/2015 9:10 PM (GMT 0)
I don't think so. I think I have had access to my fair share. The only things I didn't have access to were things that aren't proven or approved (and with money or without, you have to seek those things out for yourself). If I was very rich, i'd either go nuts trying to seek them out or I would say F it and have surgery so I could get on with my life of loveliness (not at all similar to my current life of struggle). I could have definitely gone a lot further with trying to find something but I don't think anything would have helped. I still have a lot of fatigue so I am not sure surgery is going to be my magic bullet. it will stop the UC but whatever else I've got going on doesn't seem to care about a colon. the EBV, CFS or whatever non-diagnosable condition that i've dealt with since long before I had UC is still making me very tired.
Posted 9/22/2015 9:11 PM (GMT 0)
In this country YES. Money buys anything and everything. My current financial situation which isn't anywhere near poor only affords me what my current "plan" allows, I couldn't even dream of seeing someone out of network to advise me on my condition. If I had that kind of money I could afford treatments that I'm denied only because they only work for a small percentage of people, well I could be that small percentage but we will never know because I don't have the money. This reminds me of a South Park episode where they cured AIDS, all it took was to inject a ton of cash into the person and they became healthy again, it is somewhat true but not always look at Steve Jobs for an example.
Posted 9/22/2015 10:06 PM (GMT 0)
No. Everything I have read shows me that my UC healthcare has provided everything possible. There is only so much they can do for some of us who do not respond to RX meds and I chose not to go up the ladder to higher medications.

You can look at Steve Jobs dying at an early age and know that money cannot buy everything.
Posted 9/22/2015 10:16 PM (GMT 0)
As I haven't had to move up the med ladder past Mesalamines yet, I can't really answer this. If I ever need Remicade and my insurance doesn't pay just about all of it, I will be in trouble. I know having surgery would cost me a pretty penny too I'm sure.

But having the extra money would mean being able to afford a cleaning service because when I'm flaring I can barely do much of anything.
Posted 9/22/2015 10:19 PM (GMT 0)
While money or lack of it may be a small factor in some people, overall it doesn't factor in much. There are many cases where lower income people have better insurance than richer people do. As was already pointed out, there have been many very rich people, such as celebrities, who got cancer or whatever and didn't fair any better than John or Jane Doe.
Posted 9/22/2015 11:40 PM (GMT 0)
I forgot to consider the stress aspect. I would be in a better mental state, that's for sure, perhaps i would be living life completely differently and I would have never developed this illness. Who knows. It's too difficult to tell where I would be had I been born a billionaire but I am sure my head would be very far up my butt :)
Posted 9/23/2015 2:12 AM (GMT 0)
Well my hubby works for Ford Motor Company and we have some of the best health care coverage in the world. So no. Even if we were rich, it still wouldn't beat what we have. For instance, my Remicade infusions are about $7,000 each (this includes hospital care, IV, premed and the med itself). I pay nothing. It doesn't even come out of my hubbys check (premiums)

However! We have not always been this lucky! Before he got hired into Fords we had to pay for our health coverage and at one point we had none so I had to choose - food for my kids or medication for myself. No brainer - my kids always came first. So yes, being rich could've came in handy then :)
Posted 9/23/2015 6:37 AM (GMT 0)
Yes of course you would have better access. Greater wealth brings greater flexibility and opportunity... And better connections. And as with everything in life it's often who you know not what you know. So greater wealth (and I mean significant wealth) brings greater access.

However whether it means being healthier (in IBD context) ... That I'm not sure of. Whilst you'd have earlier access to drug trials, early licensing etc the flip side is you'll have access to more drugs that prove to be useless... As well as the money to attract plenty of quacks to your door with their latest whacky (but useless) cures.
Posted 9/23/2015 1:16 PM (GMT 0)
Advantages: If your rich then the cost of medications, doctors, and diagnostic tests are of no concern to you and they'd be no reason to delay those things over financial concerns (like the rest of us might). It would enable you to see the best doctors the world over (the rest of us are limited by insurance and locally available doctors).

However, uc is uc regardless of your financial status. Unless a great big pile of money somehow eases uc urgency, bleeding, pain (if only you shove enough cash up the old bung hole to stop it) then I'd say no, it makes no difference being rich. As Uc can be easy or it can be a nightmare, require lots of trial-and-error treatments, and take a while to get under control. Some are just unresponsive to all treatments and require surgery.
Posted 9/23/2015 2:06 PM (GMT 0)
If I had Bill Gates money, I wouldn't work, which means there would be no stress, which means there would be no Colitis.
Posted 9/23/2015 3:11 PM (GMT 0)
Are you talking about if you become fantastically wealthy today or if you were that way when you were diagnosed? Because some people were diagnosed decades ago...

Anyway in my case, I don't think it would have much difference either way. Having squillions of dollars doesn't make up for the relatively limited/effective drugs available for IBD. I think the only thing that *may* have made a difference was having Remicade 10 years earlier. However, there's no guarantee a private doc would have given me Remicade in 2005 or that it would have worked, or kept on working, if they had.

Today things aren't much better. If I was rich, I'd probably order my own blood/stool tests to save a bit of time and boring chasing up. Plus I could order them every month if I wanted to, which given my current hypochondria, I probably would. But if there was something actually wrong, I wouldn't be much better off than I was 15 years ago. I've probably burnt my bridges with Remicade and Humira, which really leaves only Tsyabri and Entyvio. Forgive me if I don't jump up and down with joy at the prospect...
Posted 9/23/2015 3:51 PM (GMT 0)
No. I've been lucky in that my health insurance hasn't denied any needed treatment. I can't think of anything I would have done differently (other than quitting my job earlier), and I dont' think I'd be a bit healthier.

I do think I'd be happier. I know money can't buy happiness, but some of the things it does buy could help make me happy.
Posted 9/24/2015 12:35 AM (GMT 0)
Oh definitely. I wouldn't flare knowing that money wasn't an issue. I also can't afford Remicade infusions. Thankfully I can get into remission and stay there for awhile.
Posted 9/24/2015 12:54 AM (GMT 0)

Michelejc said...
If I had Bill Gates money, I wouldn't work, which means there would be no stress, which means there would be no Colitis.


You'd still have stress, just because you have money doesn't mean you won't have stress....there's more to getting UC than just being stressed, although it may possibly be a trigger, chances are more than likely there's more than one trigger involved, if stress was all that caused UC, most everyone would have UC then.
Posted 9/24/2015 12:56 AM (GMT 0)
You can have all the money in the world, but since there's no cure for IBD (yet) then what good would it do for your IBD? You can't buy something that doesn't exist.
Posted 9/24/2015 12:58 AM (GMT 0)
Absolutely. I work three jobs because, even with health insurance, my co-pays and prescriptions add up to about 15% of my salary, which is too much for me to afford.
As we all know, working 40 hours a week while flaring isn't fun, let alone working 60 hours a week. I can't afford to take the time off I'd need in order to try some treatments, like certain probiotics, when I know that probiotics have left me unable to work for weeks at a time in the past.
There are a lot of costs I didn't anticipate after my diagnosis. I've moved twice in the past two years (and I own) in order to be closer to work since a commute downtown was too much for me with my symptoms. There are days when I have to drive and park rather than take a bus because I know I'll never make it, and the cost of parking is astronomical. I had to seek therapy and drugs for depression and anxiety that I'd never had prior to my diagnosis. And of course, the months where I couldn't leave my house without wearing an adult diaper - and those aren't free. At one point, my doctor suggested I get another opinion at the Cleveland Clinic. I couldn't because that's out-of-network and I couldn't afford to take off of work.
It seems like every day there's some new cost associated with UC. More money would have given me more opportunities, but more importantly, more time to treat this disease.
Posted 9/24/2015 2:31 AM (GMT 0)
Omg YES! Stress is a huge factor and it would help to be rich! Also messages and all of lifes good stuff! No BS WORK DRAMA. Yes!
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