Crafty Lil Devil

What a ripoff!

I can't remember if I posted about this or not, but let me give you a little background on this problem I've been having. Ever since we moved here, I have been miserable! Non-stop runny nose 24-7. And when you have that, you also eventually get a sore throat, earaches, and everything else that typically goes along with seasonal allergies. Back in September, I got to feeling especially miserable and went to an allergy specialist. He did the skin tests and tested me for about 40 different things and I did not react to one single thing! I was amazed! (Especially considering the fact that my dad, aunt, and cousin have the worst seasonal allergies I've ever seen!) So, he diagnosed me with "chronic non-allergic rhinitis". What is that? A chronic runny nose. I wanted to look at him and say "Well, DUH!" He sent me home with some nose spray and that was it. This nose spray is Nasocort AQ which costs $74.00 a bottle. I tried it and it did seem to help somewhat, so I just used it and that was that.

Now fastforward a few months to about 3 weeks ago. Again, the runny nose started. I thought maybe I'd just caught a cold from one of the kids at school. Let's see if it goes away. Nope. I got a sore throat, a cough, and an earache too. So, having used up all my samples, I broke down yesterday and bought the outrageously expensive bottle of medicine. And today, I started coughing and could not quit. I coughed so much I almost threw up. I coughed so much that my supervisor threatened to call 911 if I could not catch my breath. I finally quick hacking and said "OK, guess this is not going away. I have to go to Urgent Care and see if they'll prescribe me something to help." I left work, with my supervisor threatening to drive me to Urgent Care herself, and saw the physician assistant. She said she can't imagine me not having allergies and prescribed me 5 things to take. Biaxin (antibiotic) for bronchitis she said I developed from 3 weeks of sniffling, Maxair (inhaler) to help me breathe, floxin (for a middle ear-infection), Diflucan (to counteract the negative side effects of the Biaxin), Mucinex DM (to help with the cough) and Claritin (for my ALLERGIES)! I don't think I have ever been on so many medications at one time! All of this cost me a whopping $280.00! But oh no, I don't have allergies. YEAH RIGHT! I think if this gets better, I will march myself back to that allergie specialist and demand that he figure out just what the heck I AM allergic to and discount the price for making me suffer through another 8 months of misery.
So in the past week, I have spent $354 on medication. Good thing we get 80%reimbursed from our insurance. It's still a ripoff though.