Now, onto the relevant parts. Today my girlfriend had her insulin, her syringes, and a few other things stolen out of the car. The other things are easily replaceable, but the insulin isn’t. Partly due to the $117 price tag, and partly because she has to have a doctor call in an order for it.
She’s got the money for it, barely, but every doctor we’ve called in both our towns isn’t answering. None of them are in their office over the weekends, so it looks like it’ll be Monday before she can get anymore.
What should we expect, with her missing her insulin shot for today, tomorrow, and Sunday? I tried googling the answer, but all I found was information on how often certain classes of people miss their shots. (Like I care that 20% of poor people miss it, or that rich people tend to take their shots more often. That doesn’t help me at all.)
Every doctor I’ve ever used has an “emergency” number for this sort of thing. Usually it goes to an answering service, who will have the doctor’s personal phone numbers and can relay the message.
EDIT: I guess this doesn’t really answer your question, but - it would be highly unusual if you couldn’t get in touch with your doctor over the weekend. You might also call the pharmacy and ask if they could provide a replacement, without doctor’s approval. It’s not like insulin is a controlled narcotic or something.
If her health insurance company has a 24-hour service number, or ‘ask a nurse’ service, these services can sometimes direct you to a doctor or get one’s attention for you.
She can head to the nearest emergency room or urgent care clinic. Again, the insurance company nurse or helpline might be helpful in directing her to one nearby that is preferred for her plan.
If she’s a type I diabetic, this IS an emergency and it’s important she gets it taken care of.
If you can’t get ahold of the doctor at an emergency number/paging service/whatever, then I’d go to urgent care or the emergency room and explain the situation.
Yes, this is good advice. I find it very hard to believe that none of the doctors left a number on their voicemail for an emergency pager or answering service. Did you listen to the entire voice mail message before hanging up? Every doctor office I’ve worked at has had a way of reaching a doctor in an emergency.
It’s not worth the risk of going without insulin for several days. A diabetic going without their insulin has the risk of life-threatening consequences like diabetic ketoacidosis:
None of the doctors I called left an emergency number, nor did they have an answering machine or voice mail. Her insurance hasn’t kicked in yet either, so no help there. I’ll tell her to go to the emergency room and see if they can do anything. (No urgent care in her area. Just the ER.)
If she’s a regular customer at her pharmacy, then she should call them up, or go there, and explain that her insulin was stolen. It’s possible that the pharmacist can sell her enough insulin to get her through the weekend, without requiring an ER trip, which is hellaciously expensive (but still cheaper to go now rather than later).
Yes. It’s not common knowledge, but yeah, any of the generic insulins can be purchased OTC in any drugstore. You still have to buy it from the pharmacy counter, but you don’t need a prescription. That said, this only works for the generics, so if your wife is using one of the newer brands (Lantus, Humalog, Novolog, etc.) it might be tricky to get the dosage/timing right for the generics instead.
Is she type 2 or type 1? It’s a lot less critical for a type 2 to go a couple of days without insulin.
It’s not a generic vs brand issue, it’s an issue of the kind of insulin.
Novolin N, Novolin R, and Novolin 70/30 as well as Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin 70/30 are all OTC. Novolog and Novolog 70/30 and Humalog and Humalog 70/30 are all legend, and so are all other insulins – such as Lantus, Apidra, and anything else.
The reason why can be seen in the name: Novolin is natural insulin; Novolog is a synthetic insulin analog. The Ns are also analogs, but they’ve been around long enough to get grandfathered in AFAIK.
There are no generic insulins, unless you want to count the Walmart-exclusive Relion brand, which is just the Eli Lilly (Humulin / Humalog) insulin with a different label on it.
I sure the heck wouldn’t go with the OTC Insulin unless that’s what she’s already on (which, given the price you stated, I doubt). Yes, it’s Insulin, but it’s a whole different beast with different patterns and dosages than what she’s used to. She could very well get herself in trouble with it.
Around here, the way to get in touch with a doc on the weekend is to call the local hospital and have him/her paged. If that specific doc isn’t on call, they know how to find him/her or one of their partners. That’s what I ended up doing a couple weekends ago when my pump broke and I needed a prescription for a different Insulin to get me through until me replacement pump showed up.
Alternatively, call the pharmacy where she normally picks up her Insulin and tell the pharmacist what happened; chances are they will euther know how to get in touch with your doc or can recommend another one who is around on the weekends.
Under no circumstances should your girlfriend try to go without insulin until Monday. That’s plenty of time to develop DKA, which I’m sure you’re aware is life-threatening. The hospital stay will be crazy expensive. Add onto that any time she’d miss from work by being in the hospital for a few days.
Doctors always (in my experience) have a colleague to take call for them when they are unavailable. This is a true emergency, so on the off chance that her doc doesn’t have someone on call for him, he should be able to be contacted at home even if he’s officially unavailable.
I second Athena’s suggestion to consult the pharmacist: those folks can get this done, either by contacting her personal doc or by other means. Also, if your girlfriend’s insulin is equivalent to an over-the-counter variety, the pharmacist can definitely make sure she gets the right one.
Worst case scenario: if for some reason a pharmacist can’t help her and her doctor has no coverage for an emergency, she should go to the ER. Far better (safer and less expensive) to go the ER now than to wait until her life is in peril and then go.
Not insulin, but I was once able to get an emergency supply of a drug I was taking from the pharmacist…it was three pills to get me through the weekend until I could see the doctor on Monday.
If she can, she should attend a diabetes education class. Wait til her insurance kicks in, because sometimes insurance will pay for this. A diabetic who is controlling her disease is cheaper to care for than one who isn’t.