Hi all,

Here I am,turning to you all for help once again!

I have been on Vivelle dot and Prometrium since last April with wonderful results. I actually have my life back!

That being said, my insurance company,in their infinite wisdom, has decided to make the Vivelle a "non-preferred" drug now, which basically means I will pay twice as much for it!

I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with a generic form of estradiol? The booklet I just got from the insurance co. of their so called "preferred" drugs lists a generic but it really gives no information. There is a patch form and it looks like they will limit you to one a week, interesting because the Vivelle is used twice a week. I wonder how well that will work. I can usually tell it's time to change the patch.

I can't even tell you how furious this all makes me,that some big company can dictate, over my doctor, what I should be taking!

Any thoughts?? I have an appt. with my doctor tomorrow afternoon to discuss where I go next but any info at this point will help greatly!

No one?

Aw, MrsB, wish I knew, but I don't!

Someone?

JJ

Aw, MrsB, wish I knew, but I don't!

Someone?

JJ

Oh well,that's ok,JJ. Maybe I'll just have to be the guinea pig this time.

Had my appt. this afternoon and the doctor gave me a script for the generic estradiol patch. It's a once a week patch. He thinks it's the generic of Estratest. We'll see how it goes. If it doesn't work as well, I'll just end up paying the money for the Vivelle. I just can't go back to where I was last year at this time!

Mrs B,

I'm in Canada, and each province does things a little differently, but here the doctors write scripts for generics. If the doctor doesn't have faith in the product, or the generic disagrees, the doctor is free to prescribe what does work, but there is an effort to use good generics to keep the bill to the public purse as low as possible.

In New Zealand there was a debate recently. Seems Mauri have a disproportionally large number of smokers, and public service groups were pumping for free scripts for Zyban. The government said "give us time to think about it, there are options" The option the government had in mind was Nortryptylene. The success rate between the two was the same, but zyban was 25 times more expensive. That money could fund a lot of other drugs, so obviously the govt was interested in keeping its costs down. Both drugs had advantages and disadvantages.

With for-profit medical companies, obviously there is an interest in maximizing profit.

It has gotten to the point here that no matter what your doctor writes for you,if there is a generic, you will get it. Someone should really knock big parm up the side of the head and just make the drugs less expensive altogether. I realize it takes a lot of money to develop new drugs but you would think that with all the proceeds from their stupid tv commercials, that would help!

What would be helpful would be a Big Book of Pharma, where drugs are reviewed and compared. I hadn't heard of Nortryptylene until I stumbled upon a newspaper article in an online edition of a New Zealand newspaper, but Wellbutrin/Zyban ads I had seen by the boatload. The weight and the libido thing would have made me pick wellbutrin over the competition, but medical costs being what they are it would have been nice to have made an informed choice.

Frequently, the new drugs are competition for older drugs, but the difference in performance may not justify the cost difference. The governor of Oregon a few years ago, compiled such a list to help keep medical bills down to a duller roar.