Let's Talk Drugs. And TV.

Heh, now that should get some interesting hits.

Anyhoo, I know a couple of other people have posted on this recently, but I thought I'd throw out some more info about getting your drugs for treatment, whatever treatment you're undergoing.  I've ordered from all of these online pharms and had fantastic service.  I suspect this info might be mostly useful to the uninsured like us, but I could be wrong! In any case, please pass this info along.  I have the feeling that CanadaPharmacy might be perfect for people who pay ridiculous prices for meds, regardless of whether or not they're for infertility.

CanadaPharmacy.com - Mr. Oro gets his asthma meds here.  If I'd known in advance, I'd have gotten my progesterone bullets here too, as they're slightly cheaper than what I pay now (breakdown below).  You will need to fax your prescription, plus any relevant info.  Downside: meds can take a couple of weeks to arrive.  I do recommend you buy the $19(?) mail thingy if you need frequent prescriptions as it saves on shipping.

IVFMeds.com (aka LondonPharmacy) - fast shipping!  My credit card company called me with a stop order, however, as the order was billed to LondonPharmacy in Panama.  I okay'd it and the Menopur and Bravelle came directly from LondonPharmacy, London, UK.  The Bravelle was the Italian brand under Fostimon, with instructions in, natch, Italian.

Schrafts - now a part of Walgreen's.  I was overnighted my trigger shot from them, plus some needles and a sharps container, delivered to the hotel we were staying in. 

Okay, now for the gritty and the nitty.  Here's what I would have paid and what I actually pay  for my 100mg progesterone bullets:

CanadaPharmacy: 99 @ $1oo
IVFMeds.com: no 100mg packs, $30/200mg/15 pack, don't know how much if they had 100mg packs*
Schrafts: 1x @ $3 eah, 3x daily for 30 days, $300
Local Hospital Pharm: doesn't serve outpatients
Local Pharm: 1x@$6 each, 3x daily for 30 days, $540.
Clinic Pharm: 10o @ $132, $149 including courier shipping to my house <---what I actually pay

Hope that helps.  Oh, I paid $1100, including shipping for the Menopur and Fostimon (3 vials each for...10 days?  Needless to say, I have many vials left over, including the mixer fluid and alcohol swabs.  I paid...$47? from Schraffts, including trigger ($12? w/needles), sharps box, wipes, and overnight shipping (from New Jersey).  I got the Lupron and almost all of my needles, including the mixers, from my clinic.  To be honest, I'm not sure I paid anything for them! The hospital my clinic is part of also gives a 49% discount to uninsured patients, so make sure to ask if there's a discount if you're uninsured!  Also ask at your pharmacy - my local pharmacy was willing to give me a discount, but it was still coming up to $300 a month.

~*~

It was Labor Day yesterday and since I was on bed rest, again, I figured my options were tv, tv, laptop, and more tv.  Thankfully several stations were running marathons, y'know, The Closer, CSI, CSI: Miami, L&O, Crossing Jordan, Cold Case Files, yadda.  Now, being infertile, even though I'm, y'know, on my way off the Island,  I still get unbelieveably annoyed at pretty much every single story featuring infertility, and I've got my eye on you, Brenda Leigh Johnson.

Because, y'know, infertile people are crazy.  And, apparently, so are their parents, judging by CSI the other day (or maybe yesterday?  When you're on bed rest they all just kind of run together...), wherein a woman, who had been a surrogate for an infertile couple, ended up keeping the baby (no, never explained) and making the couple the baby's godparents.  The husband had been killed in a car accident, and months later the infertile wife's mother goes and kills the surrogate so that "her baby gets her baby".

Mm.

Then there was L&O:SVU (which occasionally beats out UK's Eastenders for Most Miserable Storyline**), where the crazy Reproductive Specialist was 'cloning' dead children for desperate parents by impregnating young girls and passing off said babies as the new cloned kids.  Wasn't paying attention to that episode too much.

There were a couple of other episodes of CSI but I can't recall the details now.

As for The Closer, well.  I don't know where the storyline is going to go, and I'm scared that it's going to turn from a really good show into 'Brenda and Fritz have a Baybeeee!'.  I'm already quite concerned with her diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Failure, the cause of which is, PCOS.  Tada!  And she's going to be 'cured' with Ovarian Drilling.  Now, I've been reading up on OD and yes, it does appear to have 'positive' effects in lowering testosterone and androgens in women with PCOS who want to get pregnant. 

And therein lies my problem.  Nowhere have we seen evidence that Brenda wants a baby, or that she's been having any 'female troubles' until the last few episodes.  I'd like to think this was simply shoddy writing, but I'm 100% positive it's a 'oo, Brenda needs some woman problems!', like how Scully got cancer and then underwent IVF (puh-leeze).  I would be interested in a pregnancy storyline if it had been intimated in any way that she wanted children, or didn't, which would be far more interesting actually, and then, as the Brits say, 'fell pregnant'.  But no, I strongly suspect the 'Brenda's having a baby and isn't it funny how everyone in the squad room gets all protective and has male pregnancy symptoms, HAHAHAHAHA!'.

I'm afraid I'd have to stop watching the show.  In fact, I already have to have my mom spoiler me before I watch...how sad is that?  Come to think of it, the only show I can think of that regularly has character commentary about fertility/reproductive/women's health is L&O:Criminal Intent.  I missed most of the episodes where Kathryn Erbe's pregnancy was written into the show, but I do remember liking how they handled it - with respect.

 

So am I crazy here?  Oh wait, I'm infertile, I must be!  Anyway, is my judgement way off here, or am I underestimating the infertility craziness on tv?

Oro

 

*I don't do windows or math
**I'm not convinced the Spirit of Chr!st is what Walford really needs, but whatever.

Comments

[Lynnette]

Sell your leftovers on Freegaragesale.com under Medical. I've bought from people there. It works! Require Fed-Ex C.O.D. and don't mention PayPal. Whether you choose to list a phone number is up to you. I rarely bothered with anyone who didn't. You can get some great deals, or make some $$ if you're willing to try. So happy to see your pregnancy chugging along...

[marion]

I can't believe I know this, but...On the CSI episode, the woman in question wasn't a surrogate. She participated in a "snowflake" embryo program; the "shocking" thing about the ep was that she had given birth but was still a virgin (how she still had a highly noticeable hymen despite all of the procedures one must go through to get knocked up by a donor embryo was not explained). Anyhoo, the idea was that an infertile couple had tried IVF, decided to give up before they ran out of embryos, and donated the remaining embryos to a "snowflake" bank. The murder victim, a devout Christian, had participated because 1) she wanted to be a mother despite being single and 2) she saw it as an anti-abortion thing. She became friends with the donor couple and named them as her child's guardians in the event of her death; the couple went down to one when the husband died. THAT'S why the genetic mother's mother killed the gestational mother - she wanted "her baby to have her baby."

So, upshot: No crazy infertile types and nothing about surrogacy, though some potential misrepresentations around "snowflake" embryos, etc. etc. The gimmick of the episode was that a virgin had given birth.

Why do I know this again? Please don't ask.