Tag Archives: medication

Lupus and Acid Reflux

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My wife has struggled with Gastroesophageal reflux disease for years now. I imagine that this is fairly common with anyone who has to take the amount of medication that she does.

She’s tried all kinds of medications for reflux over the years. The last one that was prescribed for her was Zegrid, but that is no longer covered by insurance because it is available over the counter. I still don’t understand that logic. We pay a bit more for it now since it’s not covered, but it still seems to do a good job.

Things that seem to help in addition to the medication are:

  • Avoiding carbonated beverages
  • Reducing caffeine
  • Avoiding late night snacks

My wife has a terrible time following any of these tips. Thank goodness for medication.

Lupus Medication OTC

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We’ve recently had our insurance stop covering a medication because it is now available over the counter. This seems to be happening more often. It doesn’t really make a huge difference, but it does end up costing us more for the same medication.

I’ve never really understood this concept. So a doctor prescribes a patient a particular kind of medication, let’s call it Loopie, just for fun.

So Loopie is a special medication that is available only by prescription and costs quite a bit of money. Thank goodness that the health insurance I pay for every month covers this very special drug, Loopie, and I only have to pay a fraction of the price to get it. Now, someone decides that Loopie isn’t quite so special anymore and they start selling the drug over the counter for a fraction of the price that my insurance company was paying for it before.

Yay! I think. Now, it will be much cheaper for my insurance to cover the cost of this great medication, Loopie OTC. However, the insurance company says, now that anyone can get Loopie, we don’t see why we should have to pay for it. Pay for it yourself.

Wait a minute, insurance company. If you were willing to pay the pharmaceutical company $200 for the month supply of Loopie you used to require me to pay $20 to pick up from the pharmacy, why is it that you aren’t willing to pay at least a portion of the $25 that I now have to pay for Loopie OTC?

Am I alone on this one?

Leflunomide aka Arava

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Leflunomide (le-FLOO-noh-mide) is the new medicine that was recently prescribed at my wife’s recent visit to UCLA. Leflunomide or Arava is an arthritis medication and will help to reduce Jenny’s overall pain level, without having to increase her pain meds.

According to Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer:

Arava (leflunomide), a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD), helps improve rheumatoid arthritis symptoms such as joint swelling and tenderness. But unlike many symptom relievers that only help relieve pain and swelling, Arava actually helps slow the progression of joint damage caused by rheumatoid arthritis. In addition, Arava is the only oral DMARD indicated to improve physical function.

It’s pretty exciting to think that a drug will not only take care of Jenny’s RA symptoms, but also help reduce the damage to her joints. We were told that it can actually heal joint damage that has already occurred, but that wasn’t mentioned in the blurb from the manufacturer, so I wonder about the accuracy of that claim. Regardless, Jenny’s been on it for a couple of weeks now and it does seem to be helping her joint pain, without producing any noticeable side-effects.

If you’ve had any experience with Arava, I’d be interested to hear what you thought.

Sjögren’s Syndrome

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Sjögren’s syndrome, pronounced (SHOW-grins), is an autoimmune disease that features inflammation of the glands that produce tears, which leads to dryness in the eyes, and inflammation of the glands that produce the saliva in the mouth, which leads to dryness in the mouth and lips. It is one of the more common autoimmune disorders and is thought to affect over four million individuals in the United States alone.

You can learn more about Sjögren’s syndrome by visiting The Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation, which was founded in 1983 and “provides patients practical information and coping strategies that minimize the effects of Sjögren’s syndrome.” The foundation’s website has a great deal of information, even though it doesn’t appear to have been updated recently. I’m not sure if it is even still an active organization, but I will send them an email and see if anyone is still home. Nonetheless, the site has a good amount of information.

I would recommend that you first visit the Sjögren’s information page at the Lupus Foundation of America for more information.

My wife has just recently started taking Evoxac, which is a medication for Sjogrens. It’s pretty early to tell if it’s making any difference, but we have had an odd episode where she woke up coughing from too much saliva, which was a little scary.

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