OMG!!! This is so jacked up! These people (insurance execs) should be thrown in prison for this stuff. There is blood on their hands.

IANAD, IANYD. But... my opinion is that you're playing with fire! Do NOT use insulin without testing; you may think you're not going low, and you might not be, but you're taking a risk that you should not take.
When your doc prescribed the insulin, s/he should have prescribed a quantity that would last a month under normal circumstances... true? or not? if not, you need to go back to the doc and ask for the scrip to be revised.
Really, Deborah, take this testing stuff seriously.... I didn't for far too long, and now I don't have any feeling at all from my knees down, even though I've had really good control of the levels for the last several years.

Yes to calling the doc again and yes to testing. Please.

I find that when a script is denied for "too soon" a new script with a different dosage goes through just fine. I haven't run into this in a few years since I started taking more consistent meds, rather than having the dosage changed partway through a month's worth of meds, but it ought to still work. If the script is changed slightly it's a different script entirely.

So yeah, can you get the doc to call you in something? I hope so, good luck...

I'm a wee bit embarrassed. The mister called the pharmacy this morning and got it all straightened out. It was the pharmacy not the insurance co. who refused to fill the prescription. Because I've recently started taking insulin regularly (as I should) the amount taken has gone way up and that's what triggered the pharmacy to wonder what was going on.

My prescription for insulin is good for a year and is "fill on demand/as needed".

I tested last night and this morning and my BG (blood glucose) is high, which confirms that I'm not taking too much.

What will probably happen is adding a different insulin to my regimen by using a short acting insulin at meal-times.



More info than you probably want to know:

I know that testing and taking my drugs (insulin, etc.) is very important. I've never been in denial that I have diabetes and what I need to do to keep it in check. The problem has been depression. I haven't cared enough about myself to try to be healthy, I haven't had the capacity mentally and emotionally to deal with much of anything. Seriously. I rarely leave the house, showering and brushing my teeth is a chore, I've cancelled visits to family and doctors because I can't deal with it, the mister does all the shopping and 99% of the household chores. And because I can't do this stuff I go into a feedback loop that makes it all that much harder. So. I am trying to deal with this shit but it's so fucking difficult.

Normally I don't bitch about this stuff because I know people here at MetaChat let alone the rest of the world have more on their plates than I ever will. But hey, there it is in all it's ugly glory.

I'm on both Lantus and Novolog, and I had the same experience with my insurance company, or at least I thought so. I have a prescribed dose of 45 units a day of Lantus, and I had about two days' amount left, and the drugstore wouldn't refill. I called the insurance company, and it turned out (at least by their statement) to be an issue with the instructions of the doc. In any case, the customer rep of the insurance company issued a one-time release, and I got the prescription and refill instructions straightened out.

Lantus from what little I know (I've only been on it for about 4 months) is more of a once-a-day same-amount-every-day insulin than the older varieties, which is why it is so bloody expensive. My usage of Novolog goes up and down depending on what I've eaten, but my Lantus usage is pretty much the same every day, and this seems to work very well to keep the sugar under control.