serafaery

This migraine is fucking killing me.

It is caused, predictably, every month, by withdrawal from birth control.

...

My insurance will not cover a prescription that will give me that extra week a month of medication to spare me this misery. I would have to pay out of pocket for it. Hundreds of dollars every month. I can't afford it.

It doesn't matter that my doctor wrote a prescription for it. THEY deem it unnecessary. The doctor clearly doesn't have the expertise to know what I need, but the insurance company knows that no woman needs birth control 365 days a year. That's just wasteful luxuriance so they don't have to bleed and buy tampons. Selfish bitches. Let them bleed.

(I've done some research and found that most doctors agree that there is no medical reason why women on birth control should have to menstruate at all, and that it's perfectly safe, with today's modern medication and its extremely safe levels of side-effects, to continue birth control year round and skip menstruation altogether. Tylenol is more harmful to the body than birth control, by a lot.)

My insurance does not allow me to buy extra packs of my existing birth control, so I can simply continue to take it through that break week, and avoid this suffering.

It's not just that they will not cover it. Even if I wanted to pay out of pocket (over a hundred dollars every three months) for an extra pack to spare me this pain, it is illegal for me to do so. They refuse to dispense it for me. My doctor has tried to prescribe me the continuing medication, but my insurance will not allow it.

...

I asked the doctor if there is a way to prescribe extra packs of birth control. She tried. No dice. Even though I really can't afford to pay for those out of pocket, either. $120 every three months is still a lot of money to me.

I fucking hate this.

I miss at least one day of work a week because of this.

This. Hurts. So. Much.

...

When my migraine subsides, I'll call them again and try to figure out a way to get them to allow me to buy more medication so that I can avoid this. There must be somewhere I can send a letter or something. They offer me migraine medication, which is ironically several hundred dollars more than the birth control I seek - they'll pay for that. But the migraine meds don't work anymore. Even just taking them one week a month, my system builds a tolerance to these things.

Needless suffering because they can't rip people off enough by simply existing in the first place. They have to deny basic medication that could save hours of suffering and days of lost wages, too. And to top it off, it would actually save them money to prescribe me the slightly more expense birth control, because they wouldn't have to cover the $400-per-pack migraine medication that I have to use instead.

PS: For those confused Canadians and Aussies and New Zealanders that might be reading this, please note that I have the best health insurance of anyone I know. I pay nearly $100 a month for it out of pocket, and my employer pays almost double for the rest of the coverage.