My Medication Journey, Part 1

Okay. The last time I wrote about my diagnosis I mentioned that it was about time to talk about medication :) Of course I've written before about how I apparently picked the worst time possible to get diagnosed because of the Adderall shortage, as well. Dr. I said that whereas I'd probably do okay on Adderall immediate release (from herein referred to as "Adderall IR"), it was next to impossible to get at the time, and he would prefer me to try Adderall Extended Release (Adderall XR) first anyway. I was pretty much open - the only concerns I had were about Straterra, because numerous people that I know had really bad experiences with it, and Ritalin, because my sister was on that when she was young and didn't care for it.

First Dr. I wrote me a prescription for Adderall XR 5mg, 2 per day. I took it to the pharmacy, where they promptly told me that if I wanted to fill it I would have to pay something ridiculous like $350. Seriously. Because apparently my insurance covers Adderall (or rather, the generic version of it)...but only one XR pill a day. Two IR pills - fine. Two XR pills - not covered. And because of the laws governing prescriptions like this, they couldn't even fill it for just one pill a day so that my insurance would cover it. I had to drive back to Dr. I's office and ask him to rewrite the prescription. He did, but left it at 5 mg, telling me to just up the dosage until I felt a difference and then call for him to write a brand new prescription for the higher number of mg's.

Thankfully this time I had no problem filling the prescription, but let me reflect on this for a moment. I talked to Dr. I and looked all over the internet and apparently it is actually pretty normal for people with ADHD to need more than one XR pill a day. Because when you up the mg's, that just gives you a bigger oomph, but usually has nothing to do with it lasting longer. I called my insurance after filling the prescription to get the details, thinking what happens if this XR doesn't last long enough for me? They told me that I could certainly have Dr. I request that I be allowed to have two XRs a day - have insurance cover it, I mean - but that there was no guarantee that the insurance company would agree.

Awesome.

So there I was, with a bottle of thirty 5mg Adderall XR pills, but it still felt like I had just taken one step back :-/