Wow, I got a total of 15 prescription medications from the hospital before I left yesterday. They had to give me a large shopping bag to carry it all. The schedule is complex too. They gave me a pill organizer that has 7 days and four boxes per day. Each medication has a different schedule but most fit within the 8:00 am and 8:00 pm requirement. However, the initial dosage is high for everyone, then over time, they should decrease, especially for me since the kidney is almost a perfect antibody match. It just means the number of pills will change daily for a few weeks.
The scariest pills are of course, the anti-rejection medications. Two are immunosuppressants plus a steroids medication. the immunosuppressants are mycophenolate and tacrolimus; the steroids is prediSONE. Since I’m taking these pills, my immune system is weaker plus the drugs tend to increase my blood sugar so I also received three anti-infection medications plus an insulin injection pen for HumaLog. There are a bunch of other stuff too. This is about 90% of the 8:00 am medications:
Most of these drugs, especially the anti-rejection ones, are needed for the life of the new kidney lest your body kills it off. The co-pay for all that mediation post Medicare’s 80% payment was about $125, with $50 just for a phosphorus supplement. Hope that goes away, as well as some the ancillary medications. I can get them at UCLA for three months, then I have to figure it out with my doctors and pharmacist. It would be nice if UCLA can keep mailing me the meds but I think they need to move on to new patients.
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In order to keep track of all this, I created an Excel sheet with all the medications and will put in all the meds needed for the twice daily times. Otherwise I’m going to lose track of what to take when.
Life with chronic diseases 