Certain meds have unfortunate side effects in some people but not others. Other meds - like antiretroviral drugs used against HIV - have side effects like high cholesterol, diabetes, etc., that are considered acceptable risks by those patients who have extreme health problems when no other meds are effective. Ideally no medication would have side effects but that’s sadly the way the human body works.
Right, or as in my boy’s case:
Lithium for mania regulation, but theraputic doses of lithium decrease thyroid function, so
Levothyroxin to keep his thyroid moving and prevent metabolic and differently-rooted mood issues, and
Abilify to address psychoses that are comorbid with but not caused by mania (mercifully, I suppose, he’s more manic than bipolar).
Strattera (only $70/month after insurance) to address giddiness, concentration issues & fatigue associated with Lithium and Abilify.
A poster on another board said that his autistic son, who was then about 20 years old, was put on Abilify to treat depression that had not responded to less drastic therapies; if this didn’t work, they were going to use ECT. Not only the the young man’s depression improve, his level of functioning improved dramatically. He had attended regular school but his parents really didn’t think he would ever be able to get a job, but he did get one stocking shelves at a grocery store. On top of it, for the first time in his life, people were inviting him to go do things with them, and while he hadn’t gone on a date yet, he was expressing interest in some of the women who worked at the store.
It was definitely worth it to them. 
You obviously don’t take concentrated insulin. I got a 30-day refill yesterday, and paid a copay of $387.50; yes, that’s after insurance.
Oh it’s definitely worth it. He didn’t ask for this and I’m going to see he keeps getting what he needs in order to fight his demons. But I’m also going to bitch (here) about the drug costs because sometimes you just gotta vent. 
Christ, panache45, what’s in concentrated insulin? Fukkin fairy dust and unicorn cum? Do you at least get a kiss from your supplier because that’s a pretty aggressive screwing you’re getting there.
I take Lantus insulin, and I pay almost $400 a month for it. No kisses are involved.
Lantus is a very slow acting insulin that is taken once a day. Many people find that it regulates the blood sugar better, avoiding both highs and lows. Both high and low blood sugars have immediate and long term bad side effects, and if the blood sugar is under better control, then the patient is healthier over the long run, so theoretically it’s cheaper to take Lantus. But even regular insulin is not cheap at all.
Then there’s the blood sugar monitoring. You know how printers are cheap but ink cartridges are expensive? The testing machines are cheap, and you can usually find some sort of deal where they are free. The little test strips, though…if you think the INSULIN is bad, you don’t want to know about the cost of the testing strips. No kisses there, either, and no flowers and candy (sugar free or regular), either.
Lithium really has very few side effects, aside from weight gain. Is he on a high dose? It requires bloodwork semi-regularly.
Doctors that only prescribe Lithium must not be doing their conspiracy theory mandated work! Lithium costs pennies to make/sell, so they’re not fattening the drug company wallets enough.
But everyone should look into Walmart. Lithium is one drug where the pills cost $4, insurance or not. This is the regular kind, not ER or anything.
Yup. May not like a lot of things about Walmart, but my Trazadone and Lisinopril are both $4 a month / $10 for 3 months. Don’t even need the insurance for that.
My mom takes Abilify. She barely if at all slept the first week. On physician’s advice, she now cuts the pills down.
Lynn, you must take a huge dose of Lantus! I do know that most people start on 10 units QHS.
You can stick it straight up your ass, you moronic twat. I need two different types of meds to control my seizures. I tried each one of them alone, and while they weren’t as frequent, I was still having them. It wasn’t until I combined both of them that my seizuress stopped. If the price of not having seizures is that the drug companies make money, it’s one I’ll gladly pay.
Bite me.
He does best mood-wise on 900mg, but he has a constant drool stain at the corners of his mouth. So we cut him back to 600, which leaves him kind of like a sorta qwerky teen. The idea is to train him to identify and control his symptoms on his own to the extent he can. And yeah, the stand-bys lithium and levothyroxine are dirt cheap.
We tried everything before settling on lithium–sometimes the only thing that fits is a single mix from a whole class of drugs.
I take Paxil & Remeron - both antidepressants. I’ve been on one sort of anti-depressant or another for twenty years. The two of them together work better than any single pill I took.
Also, for high blood pressure, I’ve been taking Diltiazam and uh, Losartan. They seem to have stopped working though, drat it. I’ve switched to taking Losartan and a beta blocker, but with mixed results.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who thinks about it for a minute that the effects of two chemicals together will be different than any one chemical at a time, and might, in some specific cases, be more useful.
re Abilify - I will never again be able to hear their commercials without thinking of Harry Potter. It’s a relief, given how often they’re in my face.
How does one go about getting prescriptions from Canada? My mom takes Abilify and after insurance it still costs her over $200 per month, which unfortunately means she can’t afford it. None of us have ever filled a prescription either online or from Canada so I don’t have a clue what to tell her to do.
I asked her about this. She eventually (in a matter of weeks) adjusted to it, and now takes a higher dose then she started with. (She only started this year.)