I don't know if anyone else in Texas/the US is dealing with this right now, but just a PSA: over the last year my primary doctor and my dermatologist both suddenly had a "suggested pharmacy" that would "conveniently deliver your medication for free" rather than just sending it to whatever pharmacy location was closest to me. I was like, sure? Sounds great?

I don't have regular prescriptions, but I noticed that the occasional prescriptions I needed for eczema flare-ups or when I had the flu, seemed like they cost more than they should.

My dermatologist prescribed me Tretinoin last week, which I've never used before. From research online, it looked like it should cost less than $20 with my insurance. When it came time to virtually "check out" for the suggested pharmacy, they wanted me to pay $55. I called my derm and was like, can I opt out of this suggested pharmacy and just get my script sent to the place by my house? And they pushed back a bit (supposedly, their prices were competitive and should be similar to those at any other pharmacy. Sure, Jan.) but eventually did transfer it. Turns out, Tretinoin is $10 at my normal pharmacy. So, I don't know exactly what this bullshit is but watch out for it if your doc suddenly starts suggesting a handy dandy pharmacy with "free" delivery.

Just found this tag on a good omens fic and I'm more than a little concerned

bottled up feelings

collab with ursainted on twt and insta! X3

If you want to get angry with every American politician who railed against socialized medicine, try making an appointment with a specialist with private health insurance.

Recall their warnings about rationing of care as you're told that the first available appointment is a Thursday afternoon four months away.

Think about the fearmongering about how the quality of care would drop as your doctor meets with you for all of fifteen minutes, half of which is asking you questions you answered on a survey before you came in, the other half doing the minimum amount of tests of your breathing, blood pressure and the like necessary to bill your insurance.

Recall the hysteria around 'death panels' as your doctor goes over the long-term risks of not having your condition treated, and then tells you to call a number to actually get tested for the condition that has another two month waiting list.

And keep in mind how many privileges you possess that others do not that prevented this whole process from being even more difficult. Privileges like living close enough to a major city that the specialist is only 40 minutes away by car and not two hours. The fact that you own your own vehicle. How you are able to take time off of work without worrying about a supervisor calling you last minute to say you need to come in. The fact that you can afford the copays, can afford to miss a half day of work, don't have to worry about whether you'll be home in time before kids get back from school, etc.

In short: it was all a crock of shit.

⚠️TRANS PEOPLE WITH CALIFORNIAN HEALTHCARE: YOUR SURGERIES ARE FREE⚠️

This official page from the California Department of Insurance states "health insurance policies are prohibited from arbitrarily excluding coverage for gender affirmation services including (but not limited to) hormone therapy, mental health services and surgical services."

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

If you have ever wondered why health insurance in the US is so messed up, I highly recommend checking out Dr. Glaucomflecken’s 30 days of Healthcare series. Click here for the YouTube playlist or click here for the TikTok playlist.

Each video is about 1-3 minutes and goes through different aspects of the healthcare industry explaining how it works and especially how corrupt it is.

I spent 5 years working hospital finance watching the way health insurance directly affected my patients, and oftentimes seeing the ways lack of access to affordable healthcare resulted in chronic and emergent conditions, and even death. I cannot stress enough that I literally saw people die because their insurance denied them treatment. And on the billing side, the things people would complain about to me as something the doctors or hospital were doing wrong were usually a direct result of the way health insurance runs everything. It’s disgusting.

At the end of the series, he has a call to action - ways we (as regular people) can help work to improve healthcare (other than pushing for universal healthcare/Medicare for all). A lot of people talk about how ridiculous US Healthcare is but rarely do I see anyone talking about what we can do to change it. I think this is the most important video of all, so I’m including it here.

This video series is probably the most comprehensive, easiest to understand breakdown of the way healthcare fucks everyone over - patients, doctors, and hospitals alike. Please check it out!

please don’t scroll; I really need your help to reach my gofundme goal of $3500 and not become homeless.

Im Elle, a queer, ace, disabled person with ADHD, depression, and two cats. In November, I lost my job without warning. I have no savings as the job already had me living to the last dollar of every paycheck. I was denied unemployment and food stamps. I cannot work away from home, a physical job, or something with strict hours due to some yet-to-be-diagnosed illness.

this is my story — what’s going on & how I got here. (Smaller text used because it’s a lot of information/a long post.)

In early 2018, I was doing regular walk/runs. In 2019, I stopped being able to run, so I went on walks. Running took hours, then days, to recover from. My body couldn’t produce energy to do it consistently, so, walks. In 2020, I kept going on walks and tried to do aerobics. I was not able to keep doing aerobics. My body took hours upon hours to recover, where before it hadn’t, I was alone for almost all of 2020, and never developed COVID symptoms; it was what happened with running all over again. In 2021, it started to take more time to recover from walks. Then I started to need to take a nap immediately after I clocked out from work— and it was a work from home job. In 2022, I began to go from my sitting desk job straight to my bed most days, laying down exhausted right after work, even sleeping through lunch to get some rest.

On New Year's Eve 2023, I spent 30 minutes cleaning, including vacuuming my living room. I had to rest the rest of the day.

In the last five years, I've gone from running to being exhausted for hours by taking my garbage to the curb.

Imagine you were someone who enjoyed recreational exercise. Now imagine doing 1/100th of that and feeling sick for days. Thats me.

There are other symptoms also. More vulnerability to infection and more trouble fighting infection. Shooting, sharp muscle pains in large muscles such as the thigh or forearm, like a pinched nerve, that come and go at random. Pulse rate that skyrockets upon standing, to go back to normal soon after. Stomach inflammation. Inflammation without major swelling. Headaches. Complete inability to tolerate heat, leading to excruciating migraines that only go away with things like cold showers, electrolytes, and hours of rest in the dark with ice. Muscles that literally don't feel like they're getting oxygen. Random rashes. Face flushing. Being much more easily out of breath, yawning over and over, like I can't get air correctly. Weight gain, no matter what I eat or don't eat.

And just being so, so tired.

In summer of 2018, something… stopped working in my body. I felt sick all the time. I had a low, unexplainable fever nearly every day. Shooting nerve pain would wake me up at night. The doctor said I had a cold. But months went by and I didn’t get better. When my blood work and thyroid hormone level was normal, I was referred to a rheumatologist.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia after he made me wait 45 minutes, came in and asked “are you tired?", poked me hard, said I was tender, and left without running tests. This sort of “uhm the standard blood work came back normal, have you tried exercising more? I know you’re here because your body can’t recover from it but have you tried more of that? Also going to sleep at night?” has been the response over and over and over for five years. It got to the point where I even started to wonder if I was somehow making it up. I see a psych nurse. She thinks there's more than just depression, ADHD, and other things - though we both agree that managing those is vital too. She used to be a cardiologist, so this is reassuring. But when I have tried to see other doctors, it goes differently. Most of the time they see I have ADHD, a long history of depression, and hypermobile joints, and say that explains everything. I can't count how many times I've been told "well, you have depression” when the labs, if they even agreed to run them, came back normal. My standard blood work sometimes comes back with anemia, but I take an iron supplement. No improvement had come of it. I’ve had my thyroid hormone levels tested over and over, but never the antibodies. No imaging or referrals have happened, outside of one to a second rheumatologist. He ran no tests either; he just saw my joints are hypermobile and I was “sure taking a lot of mental health medications” (two at the time), and… that was that.

I had given up on actually even getting help until my SIL recommended a doctor she knew. For the first time in five years, when the standard blood work and TSH tests were normal, she told me we would keep looking. I actually cried with relief at that. It’s amazing to be believed after all this time.

Because of …. All of this, I'm trying to figure out how to either work for myself or find a work from home job that has flexible hours I can choose. I literally wouldn't be able to work a retail gig where I have to stand for eight hours, or even a 9-5 where I have to be there for those exact hours, because my body cannot do that right now. I want to get better but it's a long way off. First I need to know what's even wrong. I'm praying for a diagnosis soon. And treatment. At the least, management.

I have heard of EDS and I have been evaluated. I apparently don’t meet enough criteria, hence the diagnosis of JHS instead. It’s in the same family. I have also heard of POTS. I am pursuing testing. Same with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, MCAS, fibromyalgia… yeah. The thing is nothing outside of the standard blood count and thyroid hormone level test, no other lab tests have been done. There are so many things this could be that have never been checked. Lyme disease, for example, is extremely common where I live (it’s actually just extremely common worldwide) and matches much of my experience, but 1) in the USA the initial Lyme test relies on a strain of bacteria cultured in the 80s 2) there are over 100 strains of Lyme disease in the USA 3) in spite of decades of research there are doctors who don’t believe chronic Lyme exists 4) no doctor has ever checked and I only recently learned anything about it so I never asked. But… there are a lot of things to check that I’ve never had checked is my point. Fingers crossed someone can help me get there.

I do not have a partner who can try to support me through this, and my family already supports me however they can. My severance (which was low as I found out I was being paid much less than the rest of the team later) paid only my January rent.

Since my ability to work is severely limited right now, and I've been denied unemployment and food stamps, and I would need a diagnosis and to be awarded disability benefits in court (which can take YEARS that I don’t have), I have nothing in savings because of years of underpaying jobs the cost of living and being disabled and going through prior periods of unemployment due to this and other factors, I am left in a tough spot without help. Without this help, this gofundme... I have nothing.

So... here I am. A queer nonbinary disabled neurodivergent writer, trying my best, living with some undiagnosed illness that's severely impacted my ability to function, who got fired without real reasons (in America they can just do that to you without even telling you why), asking for your help to pay my February rent and January bills so I don’t repeat the trauma of being homeless. Or for you to reblog this.

Thank you for reading all of this.

It’s been on my chest for a long time. Even if it wasn’t for the gofundme, it feels good to talk about and be honest about my health. It reminds me you’re not supposed to feel like this all the time when I tell other people and they tell me I should get help and deserve answers. It’s reassuring to see competent doctors who finally believe me. I hope we figure it out.

no donation is too small— they add up. If just 100 people gave $35, the goal would be met. Sharing is also giving— it means someone who can help is more likely to see it.

You can also help via my venmo — secretladyspider

CashApp — secretladyspider

or find PayPal in my tip jar in my linktree

Goal is $3500 or over. Funds needed ASAP. If it goes over, that’ll help with February.

Thank you for anything and everything.

here's a condensed version of my unfortunate situation post, minus the memes that were taking up space:

in addition to these bills, i have about $500 of pending copayments that are waiting to go through insurance and could hit at any time. my flex spending card is empty until january, and if i don't pay these copays, i will not be allowed to schedule appointments with my therapist, drug counselor, or psychiatrist.

if you wanna help me out, my info is below:

vmo: wilcamel

ppal: wpcftm

c-app: DM me

thanks to anyone who can donate or reblog. i feel bad asking so soon after my last post, but life seems to enjoy kicking me in the sack lately.

Some reqs from insta!

I will draw heavy tf2 tummy when I'm brave enough..

im going to commit a felony

I’m a nurse and I had a seizure at my old job (when they hired me they knew I had a disability), they asked me to continue working after the seizure and when I did not I got wrote up for leaving early. I was bleeding from a bloody nose, I had vomited during the seizure. I saw the bereavement post you reblogged and wanted to add that hospitals are corporations and they do not care about us. We’re just bodies to them.

this is revolting but unsurprising. thanks for sharing, but i’m sorry youve had to deal with this.

one of the details that is often overlooked or missed about a capitalist society is the inherent capitalization of health care.

in a capitalist healthcare system, the focus often shifts to maximizing profits, which can negatively impact patient care. healthcare becomes less of an emphasis and more about making money than ensuring patient well-being. health insurance, which is obviously integral in accessing care, becomes more about financial gain, reducing coverage and affordability. doctors and nurses face increased pressure to control costs and less so to provide quality care.

these aspects contribute to a system where patient health isn't seen as the priority. boardrooms full of assholes with MBAs end up making the decisions over the actual medical staff responsible for the maintenance of societal health. how could we ever expect to treat people fairly and equitably if the decisions are always based in dollars and cents?