Rx question

Fortunately, I’ve not had to fill many prescriptions in my life. Unfortunately, it leaves me ignorant about the following situation.

I have intermittant insomnia, and around a year ago had an Rx for 30 Ambien tablets. If any of y’all have ever filled that scrip, you probably know that those 30 pills go for about $120, so I took a half as needed until the scrip ran out (around Feb of this year.)

In March, I went to our local clinic and had another Rx for Ambien, only this time they gave me 30 pills with 3 refills by 9-4-06. Again, I took a half a pill as needed, and they lasted until last week.

My question is this: I have 3 refills left with only a little over a month until the Rx expires, so what’s the protocol? Is there generally some sort of waiting period between filling these things, or could I potentially call in my 3 refills this month?

I’d like to maximize my money by getting all of the original Rx filled rather than pay for another doctor visit. I hadn’t thought about it because I didn’t run out until last week; I suppose I should have just called in the refills way earlier.

Thanks in advance.

Order one script, today, the second of August. I think, but am not 100% that you should be able to fill the second script in ~25-30 days.

My experience would show that you can at this point, today, wrangle at least two of the three refills in your remaining time period. If you do the first fill by or before 8/5.

Someone may prove me wrong, that’s okay. This is my experience with my Norco fills. Every twenty-five days I get a new one. I realize Norco is a different “class” than Ambien.

How do you like it, by the way? Does it keep you asleep all night. I’m sitting here @ 3 ayem because I woke up to pee at 1:30 and couldn’t fall back asleep.

You may be able to renew the prescription w/o another Dr. visit. I just call my Dr.'s office, his nurse calls me back and takes care of it. I can either pick up the scrip, or have it called in to the pharmacy of my choice. It’s worth a try, if the Dr. wants to check you out again, before renewing, the nurse will tell you. IANADr. but if you’ve been on a sleep aid that long it sounds like something else is going on.

In my HMO, you have to be 85% of the time past your last refill before they let you order another. So if I do mail order and get a 90-day supply, I can’t order a refill until the 77th day.

I believe your point is that you wish to save money buying the medicine in larger quantities. Most drugs can only be sold, at the rate on the perscription. Store policies and insurance may restrict the sale to a greater extent. Ask the pharmacist the price break down on quantities, and pill dosage. I found that it cost the same for 100 pills as it did for 90 of the same. I had the doctor write the perscription for a 100 at a time, not 3 times a day times 30 days. I found that some medicines cost almost the same when they were in a dosage twice what I needed, and they were a type that was splitable. The medicine was distributed evenly through the pill. The key is to find out the information on cost at the pharmacy and get the prescription written to maxamize the savings.

You may be able to get in to refills on the medicine. A 30 day supply is normaly refillable in 20-25 days.

Often you can get two months’ worth of a prescription filled at once. Unfortunately, I don’t know if they’d allow that with something like sleeping pills.

But, as others have suggested, I think maybe you ought to call your doctor’s office. It’s possible that they can extend or renew your refills. I’m not sure, though, since I’m a lucky Canadian.

For me, the time limitation comes from my insurance company. They won’t allow me to refill my prescription for the pill more then every 25 days (it’s a 28 day supply). If I wanted to pay the full amount myself, I could fill the entire 12 months worth all at once.

Thanks for the answers, all. I went ahead and called in a refill for today, and I plan on filling it again just before the Rx expires.

As far as an underlying problem, I would tend to agree. Before I went to the doc in the first place I tried the usual assortment of things: I cut caffeine out completely, I don’t eat after 6pm, I don’t use the bed for anything other than sleeping, etc. I tried valerian root and melatonin. Nada.

The doc asked about stress. I’m one semester away from my BA, but to be honest I don’t think I’ve really stressed about school at all. I have an “easy” major, English, and I’ve done well without killing myself. I do have a pretty active mind, which contributes to the insomnia. It’s difficult to shut it down when it’s time for bed.

My stomach probably accounts for some of it, too. Since about 5th grade I’ve had a spot about 3 inches above my navel, in centerline, that is tender most all the time. I’ve been through the tests with several specialists, and they can tell me what it isn’t: no hernia, no ulcers, no cancer. Eventually I think they put the tender spot down as “gastritis” and gave the additional catch-all diagnosis of IBS. Prilosec OTC, yogurt, and a multivitamin a day keep it pretty well under control (except for the spastic colon thing…it’s rare but every once in a while I get hit with that immediate urgent need to void.)

I wouldn’t go so far as to call my insomnia chronic, as it does not persist for very long at a time. Yet I don’t think I’d call it acute transient, either. Not sure if there is a diagnosis for intermittent, but that’s the word I’d use to describe it. At this point, the only thing I know to do is to keep plugging along. Once my insurance’s pre-existing condition clauses expire I plan on seeing a sleep specialist and another stomach specialist, but that’ll be a couple of years.

Again, thanks. If it comes to it I will call the doc and see if he’ll renew the Rx without an exam. Otherwise, c’est la vie, right?