My father is a kidney transplant recipient. He is 72 and 7 years in. He had polychistosis.
We are from Mexico City. We are in Colorado for a brief holiday. My father, unfortunately forgot his prescription medicines back home.
We are trying to get the medicines shipped from back home. The fastest we can get them is in two days time. His doctor suggested he take the medication as soon as possible. He needs:
Tacrolimus 1 mg (5x)
Azathioprina 50 mg (8x)
Prednisona 20 mg (4x)
We can’t get these in the States fast enough as we are not in any way enrolled in the health care system. We are in the Denver area. Please reach out if you can help.
Also, have you experienced being without your drug as for multiple days? Any consecuences?
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Ponchar
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Have you contacted any pharmacies in Colorado? I don’t know if this will work, but maybe the pharmacy in Colorado could contact your father's pharmacy in Mexico to get your father’s prescriptions, and then you could buy medication for a few days “out of pocket,” which means you would pay for the medications yourself. The medications can be really expensive when you have to buy 30 days at a time, but if you just need enough for one or two days, it might not be so bad. I am most familiar with prednisone. One time, I had to pay “out of pocket” to cover two days, and it was less than $5 USD (I was taking 5 mg tablets at the time). Another thought is that maybe you could contact a hospital in Colorado to see if they can help your father.
A couple days of prednisone and tac shouldn't be too much money out of pocket, I wouldn't think. I'm not sure I recognize the other one. Otherwise could you maybe have it shipped to where you're staying?
it may be difficult to obtain meds here with a prescript that is not from the US. 2 days is pushing it to go without his anti rejection drugs. 3 days may be critical. I PM’d you.
He really should not stop the 20mg Prednisone even for one day. He can go into an adrenal crisis that can be life threatening (independent of the transplant). If you can not get him to buy it soon please go to the ER and explain the situation there.
in Europe , we could probably get our Healthcare from home to send a prescription to whatever country we were in by email and get them in a pharmacy ??
Yes, this is important! We discovered our local hospital couldn't order my husband's transplant meds. In our area, some of those meds are very restricted and only certain doctors have the qualifications to order them. (Prednisone may be less restricted.) Our local hospital had no one on staff. We keep a couple days worth of meds in our car in case we can't get home for some reason.
Good point! Ours might no longer be in good shape; we stashed them in our car when we got caught in a snow storm. But it's summer now, and we've had fairly high temps. (We live in Virginia.) We'll need to replace them asap. Thanks!
thank you all. We came to the ER at University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora. We got the prescription and the meds in a couple of hours. Thanks for your support
when I'm travelling, I take twice the amount of medicines needed. I keep one set of Immuno medicines in hand luggage, another set in check-in luggage. while site seeing, I keep medicines for few days in shoulder bag, remaining in Hotel room. But why? I give high importance to my Transplant kidney.
Her Father has had his transplant for 7 years. Clearly he has been a responsible transplant patient. Accidents do happen. Luggage can be stolen or lost, meds can get damaged and situations you haven’t even thought about can happen. No one is perfect! His daughter very quickly had FedEx ship the meds before reaching out online to see if anyone in CO could help. We all gave suggestions and they went to the hospital. All of those actions are very responsible considering one simple mistake.
Your comment was condescending and unnecessary.
1 mistake in seven years doesn’t deserve your vitriol. We are here to support each other.
What you could have done was suggested the way you pack your meds when you travel. A helpful tip is much more useful for avoiding this scenario from happening again than a negative comment. I have no doubt that he and his family were very stressed and upset because of the oversight.
It is wonderful that you are so diligent with your transplant. I wish you much health and peace and kindness. 🙏🏻
Thanks Lisa. There were many helping hands and I was so sure that Ponchar would get the medicines in 1 or 2 days. If I were in Colorado, I would have given my medicines. (I was in Boulder many years ago). I have known many patients losing their kidney due to skipping medicines or due to taking low doses. I believe in Constructive criticism, I did not give lecture to Ponchar, I replied in one line.
I believe you meant well too. However the same good intention can be taken as harsh and condescending especially to family members who are already in distress. That's all we wanted to suggest for you to consider in the future.
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