Category: Blog

YEAH!  It shipped out today!  I am so happy that battle is won — though it is not over until it arrives on my door step.

Symlin is still showing will ship today (I will be amazed if that happens). 

The Medco database was updated in the last couple of hours. 

There is now an entry for my Symlin pen injector, and it shows 6 packages — that means they are sending 12 pens and a pen is supposed to last a week (22 1/2 injections, according to the math I did, which Symlin verified as correct).

They are also showing a ship date of January 14 on the Symlin pens, one day before the pen needles!  I’m sure that will change though. The good news, is that I do have some pen needles hanging around the house, plus I could get Albertson’s to go ahead and fill those if the injector gets here first.

The bad news is that there is no shipping date showing for the Protonix, when it did have one.

Went to the local rec center for a health fair.

First the rec center is NICE.  It’s 4 years old now, and I wondered when it was open, if they would keep it up.  Of course, they would make sure everything was working for the health fair, but there were no out of order signs every where, the ladies locker room was immaculate, and lots of equipment.  Since membership is $10.00 a year, I think, I probably will join in the near future.

The health fair itself was nice — the Fire and Police department had a contest for a blood drive, the local hospital was there doing screenings.  Lots of local businesses were there with reduced offers, including curves.

It was worth the few minutes of walking around.

Medco is showing Protonix ordered, and shipping on January 16. 

The doctor’s office called in a Symlin 120 30-day prescription to my local pharmacy and have faxed a 90-day prescription for the same thing to Medco.  The Symlin hasn’t shown up in the website yet.

My blood sugar was a bit better this morning, and my 2 hour after meal breakfast was good so now I think I’ll focus on lunch. Corrections seem to be working most of the time too.

I also put in a Dexcom sensor.  I put it in a totally different location, as I’ve been using the same area of my body for the last 6 months.  We’ll see how all that goes.

Yesterday was a yikes!  We had an awards ceremony down town, food was very different and I didn’t bolus.  Thus blood sugar this morning was 185.  I think I’m going to focus on corrections today, rather than mealtime boluses. 

I wish I had checked BEFORE I’d bolused, but I managed to do the math and "fix" it.  My spreadsheet which has the rules of 1500 and 1800 says that my correction factor should be 28, not 30, which is what I had programmed in the pump.  I just added the difference and we’ll see if that helps.  Yes, .15 units of insulin can make a difference for me.

My pharamacy math was correct — I verified with the Symlin support line today. Each pen does last approximately 1 week, if you are a Type 2 diabetic and on the 120 dose.  She said for a 30 day supply we should get 4 pens.  Meaning for a 90 day supply we should get 12.  I think.

Maybe someone at Medco has been reading the blog?  Here’s why.  I am still working on the Protonix thing.  Doctor called last night and said that the coverage review was done and that the Protonix had been approved.

Medco still showed it not ordered — seen this before — so I called the 1-800 and talked to a REALLY nice lady.  She said, yes, the coverage review had been done, and it had been approved, but Prontonix needed two reviews, one for the drug and one for the extra amount.  However, that review from the drug was still good, so they should be able to ship it.

She transferred me to customer service.  He said something about my account being flagged and that he might not be able to talk to be and might have to transfer me to someone else — WEIRD!

Then came back and said, no everything is fine, let’s review — and yes, the Protonix was approved and they could ship but needed to contact my primary care physician for a new script.  I said, hey, my gastro did the review paperwork and sent the script on December 26th, could they use that one.  He went away again, came back and said yes, and it would be here in 4-6 days.

Then I said.  Thanks, but I’m on my last day or two of medication.  What do we do on that — he said that the local pharmacy would be able to fill based on the coverage.  I called them and they said they would try it again.

Fun Medco games.  Wonder what is going to happen with the Symlin….

Since Thanksgiving, maybe a bit before food has been realloy hard for me, and even the last few weeks being active has been.  Well, yesterday went really well, partly due to my principal — he gave us most of the day to work in our curriculum areas.  The good news, I’m the only one in my area, so I managed to get a ton of stuff done, paperwork wise.

I had three really good dog agility classes in a row, each of the dogs doing really complicated stuff.  And the best news — my blood sugar was done to 126 on the meter when I woke up this morning.  

We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.

And on the Symlin front, there are a ton of news releases and other articles on the Google Alerts showing that the Symlin injector pen is available.

I was checking my Protonix / Medco status this evening — it is still showing that it is under coverage review, though the doctor claims she got a fax saying the medication was available — and on the way out of the website, I decided to check on Symlin.  YEP!  It shows the 60 injector pen and 120 injector pen.

Can someone do the dosage math for me?  I’ve never been good at chemistry math.  The prescribing inforamtion shows that it is a 2.7ml disposable multidose Symlin 120 pen-injector containing 1000 mcg/mL pramlintide.  Does that mean I multiply 1000 mcg/mL by 2.7 (getting 2700) and dividing by 120 for 22.5 doses?  Which means that I should get a pen a week? (And that DOES make sense).

I should have my comments turned on, if not email me at kathleenw at gmail.com

Today and tomorrow I’m going to leave settings alone since this is a "weird" day.  We’re doing staff development all day, which means sitting still and maybe even getting stressed by the information.

I don’t know how I did yesterday, either, because I had my pump off for about half an hour.  Today was a full site change, both infusion set and sensor.  I tend to be very slow this mornings.