MS Medications
I’m sure this handy online tool has been available for a while, but today I discovered a wonderful medication interaction checker on Drugs.com. Drugs.com offers an Interactions Checker which displays the potential interactions between two or more medications. Or between medications and food. After you agree to the terms of service, you can enter a … Read more
It happens when my wife completes a patient information form in a new doctor’s office or a dentist’s office. When she sees the question, “Please list any medications you currently take”, I wait for the pause, the sheepish grin, and the inevitable question, “What’s the name of my memory medicine?” It quickly became a family … Read more
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This is about ALCOHOL PREP PADS. It is NOT a recall of Multiple Sclerosis medications. However, persons using injected medications for Multiple Sclerosis and their caregivers must pay attention to this because Triad Group-manufactured alcohol prep pads are used to sterilize injection sites. A News Alert on the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America website (msassociation.org) … Read more
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The title gives it away, but with which medical professional is a Multiple Sclerosis patient likely to have the most contact? In my experience, it has been her pharmacist. Most medications are refilled monthly. Between quarterly or annual visits to the neurologist, I believe most concerns about Multiple Sclerosis are related to medications. And in … Read more
If you’ve ever wondered how new Multiple Sclerosis drugs are developed, evaluated, and finally approved for the market, Bloomberg.com offers a link to the video of the FDA Committee Meeting on Novartis’s new Gilenia, the first pill for Multiple Sclerosis. After drug testing and before the FDA approves a new medication, a panel of health … Read more
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Ampyra [am-PEER-ah], the brand name for a new drug named fampridine-SR, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. The new drug is the first Multiple Sclerosis drug to enhance some neurological functioning for MS patients. Dr. Andrew Goodman, chief of the University of Rochester Medical Center’s … Read more
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You may think your pharmaceutical expenses and drug costs are high. They are. Part of the reason is that drugs are made by corporations that must return value to shareholders. To do this, they must sell drugs. To sell drugs, pharmaceutical companies have paid doctors to promote their drugs. The money paid to doctors is … Read more
I’ve written before about my annual pre-authorization hassles for Provigil®. You can read more in “MS Medications, Insurance Coverage and 2 Ounces of Gold“. This year I learned about a new tool. It’s called a “plan sponsor override“. And, in my experience, it works. Here’s how it worked. First, Provigil is not a Food and … Read more
MSNBC.com has a piece this morning about the Multiple Sclerosis drug Tysabri® (natalizumab). The drugmakers have issued warnings to doctors because Tysabri is causing significant liver damage to some patients who take it. In some patients the damage occurred as early as six days after beginning the treatment. MSNBC.com : Multiple sclerosis drug linked to … Read more
When you pick up medications from the pharmacy, the drugs look so nice and clean. Certainly, medications must be manufactured with the most stringent quality controls to ensure purity. That’s probably why they’re so expensive. Right? And if you’re like me, the high cost of medications does have the small positive effect of helping you … Read more
While the benefits of early and long-term MS therapy have been documented, there are questions about MS medication I can’t help but ask. First, why are the costs for the 4 MS therapies so similar? I’ve just checked the prices on Drugstore.com for a typical one-month supply of each of the four MS “therapies”. Here … Read more
Use the FDA’s MedWatch for the Latest Drug Safety Information. If a medication you take requires additional warnings, you can learn about it on this web site of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. MedWatch is the FDA’s web site for reporting current medication safety information about drugs and medical products which are regulated by … Read more
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I called the health insurance company’s 800 number today to check on the status of the Provigil coverage review. The inquiry was quick and easy because I had the case number handy (remember the caregiver tip: keep good records). The coverage has been approved for another 12 month period. I’ll write a “thank you” letter … Read more
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