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Medical Things (not pain)
Jan. 8th, 2009 09:12 pmMy new insurance plan with Aetna is amusing. My birth control pills and my anti-convulsant pills are each ninety-day prescriptions. Under Aetna's prescription plan, I need to use the Rx Home Delivery Plan. I go online or I call them and refill my pills two weeks in advance, and then they send me more pills with free shipping. This will save me a ton of money. My thirty-day prescriptions, like Soma and Flexeril, can be refilled at a pharmacy. I won't save money, but there's no hassle. Such is the American insurance company. Aetna is good, though. Customer service is quite pleasant. I have a PPO, I can keep my current doctor, I pay nothing out of my paycheck, and my dentist is under Aetna. My husband is under my dental and vision plans, under his own company's medical plan.
And now, here's an interesting thing: Six hundred milligrams of Trileptal (oxcarbazepine) takes away the worst of the fibromyalgia pain and has some beautiful anti-anxiety effects, like a smaller dose of Soma. I posted on the fibromyalgia community about it, and one of the commenters said that she loved Trileptal for pain. My neurologist has said that he has prescribed Trileptal off-label for fibromyalgia. I am waiting for the FDA to notice.
I cannot quite predict my seizures, but I definitely sense them coming usually within ten minutes. I am usually able to get to a quiet, safe place, wait for the crawling coldness up my spine, up my neck, into my brain. I shiver and twitch and spasm and breathe deeply and breathe harshly and the world starts to fall away, and I go someplace else, and I see other things and feel other things and sense other things; and then I come back. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is awful. Sometimes it is awesome. Sometimes people assume tonic clonic, formerly grand mal, and sometimes there is that look in their eyes, the one that wonders if I will collapse in front of them and convulse and choke on my tongue, one of the biggest misconceptions, and in that flash second I realize that there is still such a stigma with epilepsy.
Sometimes I think about the times when I've stopped breathing for several seconds, yes, even with complex partial seizures.
I am rambling. Time for exercise and stretching.
I spoke to Adam earlier. He is safe in a Nashville hotel with Jason, ready to work and set up the computers and the equipment. Good.
And now, here's an interesting thing: Six hundred milligrams of Trileptal (oxcarbazepine) takes away the worst of the fibromyalgia pain and has some beautiful anti-anxiety effects, like a smaller dose of Soma. I posted on the fibromyalgia community about it, and one of the commenters said that she loved Trileptal for pain. My neurologist has said that he has prescribed Trileptal off-label for fibromyalgia. I am waiting for the FDA to notice.
I cannot quite predict my seizures, but I definitely sense them coming usually within ten minutes. I am usually able to get to a quiet, safe place, wait for the crawling coldness up my spine, up my neck, into my brain. I shiver and twitch and spasm and breathe deeply and breathe harshly and the world starts to fall away, and I go someplace else, and I see other things and feel other things and sense other things; and then I come back. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is awful. Sometimes it is awesome. Sometimes people assume tonic clonic, formerly grand mal, and sometimes there is that look in their eyes, the one that wonders if I will collapse in front of them and convulse and choke on my tongue, one of the biggest misconceptions, and in that flash second I realize that there is still such a stigma with epilepsy.
Sometimes I think about the times when I've stopped breathing for several seconds, yes, even with complex partial seizures.
I am rambling. Time for exercise and stretching.
I spoke to Adam earlier. He is safe in a Nashville hotel with Jason, ready to work and set up the computers and the equipment. Good.
