2001-04-30 - 11:59 p.m.

Free Drugs!

Today I went to see my diabetes doctor. He's a funny old duck, about my father's age, and I have a hell of a time following him because he talks so fast and jumps around from subject to subject.

Basically, there was good news and there was bad news.

The good news was that I lost another six pounds. Yay! Go me!

The bad news was that my blood sugar numbers have been too high. He gave me a good talking to about that. He even put a little frowny-face on my blood sugar sheet. I told you he was a little bit odd.

The balance between weight and blood sugar is an odd one. My doctor would prefer that my blood sugars be a little bit high if it helps me to lose weight. He views the weight as a more serious health risk. Furthermore, low blood sugars make you hungry, and when you're hungry, you eat and your weight goes up. It's a vicious cycle.

My doctor also said something else interesting: "Diet and exercise can do more to control your diabetes than any drug can."

That being said, I still have to take the drugs.

The pill I take the most is called Glucophage, and it's supposed to help your body absorb insulin. I've been taking the pill for a while, and a while back I discovered that the higher the dose, the more it screwed up my digestion. I'd feel all bloated and yukky. So, we cut the dose and the problems went away. Now my doctor feels that my blood sugars are too high, so he's upped the dosage. We'll see how unhappy this makes me.

Anyway, as I was leaving he gave me this coupon and told me about this remarkable promotion the drug company that makes Glucophage is running. If I filled a prescription for 120 of the pills TODAY, I'd get them for FREE. Wow! I practically flew to the drug store after I left because this promotion was ending today.

Because I don’t belong to a health plan (I'm self-employed) I pay for my drugs myself. Yeah, it's expensive but health insurance is more expensive. So 120 free Glucophage is a great deal. That would be a 4-month supply for me (actually 2 months now my dosage has been doubled) but the dollar value is over $100. That's over a hundred dollars in FREE drugs. Whoopie!

Now the more cagey and cynical of you out there might be wondering why this drug company is giving out free medicine. It's not like I have a choice about taking it or anything. Well, they did it because they LOVE me and all the other diabetics out there!! They did it out of pure unselfish LOVE!!

Okay, maybe not.

The fact is that the patent on Glucophage is running out and soon other drug companies are going to be able to make it. The price of it is going to plummet. So this drug company wants us diabetics to remember how NICE they are and they want us to remember the brand name when the time comes so they can continue to make money off it.

Fine, whatever. All I know is: FREE DRUGS!!!!!!!!