I lied

[Deanne]

I probably shouldn't admit that anywhere online, but I did lie to the pharmacy.

My neph had to jump through hoops to get insurance approval for Sensipar 30 mg. I was on Sensipar 60 mg pre-transplant and my transplant team wants me on 30 mg/day for now. It took over a month for the approval to go through for the 30 mg tablets and my neph said it was a painful process. In the meantime, I was taking 60 mg on alternate days because the tx center said they didn't want me splitting them, even though I was splitting them pre-transplant with my primary neph's approval and no issues from doing it. The bottle says not to split them, so the tx center wouldn't allow me to do it.

Since the approval finally went through, I called to place the order for the 30 mg tablets. They said they have approval to give me 60 mg tablets, but they don't see anything for 30 mg. I don't know if my neph made a mistake and had the wrong thing approved, or if the insurance company or Express Scripts / Acredo screwed up. Regardless, I lied and told Acredo that my neph must have changed the prescription after I saw her a couple of days ago. The Acredo customer service person wanted to cancel the 60 mg approval and start all over with the approval process. H*ll no! No one but me needs to know I'm splitting them again. I don't have a problem telling my primary neph I'm splitting them again since she was the one who told me to split them in the past, but I see no reason to mention it to the tx center since they've released me to my primary neph again anyway.

[Rerun]

We gotta do, what we gotta do.

           

[PrimeTimer]

Nah...you were being practical. There's a practical side in all of us and use it if you must. You did good. 

[Jean]

I certainly would not lose any sleep over this. If you wait for these people, you will wait until hell freezes over. Meanwhile, doing what you are doing and no one know or cares or worries, except for you. Don't worry your pretty little head over it.

[Charlie B53]

I'm late to this thread, but this IS important.

Some meds should NOT be split as the pill may have an internal mesh 'wrapper' which limits the speed of the drug disbursement.  Splitting these types breaks this membrane and the 'timed release' of the drug is broken, this can allow the drug level to maximize far to soon and later in the day/night fall way below an effective level to be useful to you.

You really need to ask the pharmacist and/or the drug manufacturer to find out if splitting is allowed.

Generally if a pill have a line across it, that is a score line and it is safe to split it.  No line, you need to start asking the question in the right place.

It can be a serious P.I.T.A., but it is your health that can be in jeopardy.

[Whamo]

I have four bottles of sensipar I can't use.  It makes me hurl.  I am going through thyroid surgery instead.  i hope my bones don't break before my surgery date.  It's been a hard winter.  Cold lingered for months, skin cancer flared up again, and now, thyroid.  At least my liver biopsy was on the good side, and I'm
on track to get on the transplant list.  Yesterday I learned one of my meds is high in phosphorus, amlodipine!  No wonder I was itchy when eating almost zero phosphorus. 

[Deanne]

I took my leftover Sensipar to my neph. She will give it to other patients.

I also went through parathyroid surgery and have a looonnnggg saga about it on the transplant board. I don't think you'll regret the surgery. They kept me overnight because I was so sick from hypercalcemia that I could hardly walk, but I think it's usually a day surgery. Keep in mind that *most* parathyroid issues resolve post-transplant, so you might need to take calcium supplements after your transplant.