Medicare Doesn't Know How to Do Math! - Tampa, FL

Yes, $2200 every 3 months out of medicare's pockets seems like a lot, but before I became brave enough to have needles stuck in my face (which hurt tremendously until I started using a numbing cream before hand) I was having 15 (a wonderful month) to 25 migraine days a month. The ER/ED staff knew me by name (from the insurance/payment clerks to the nurses to the doctors!). Each visit cost somewhere between $5k to $15k (Which was thanks to a doctor who was sure I was either having a stroke or meningitis. He wanted to do more test but I refused to have a spinal tap when I knew I was having a hormonal migraine which are my worst and take often twice the amount of pain killers plus muscle relaxers.) I was declared a frequent flier, a drug seeker, and other non-understanding names. But after the second treatment of Botox the migrains dropped to a max of 15/month and my at home medication was able to treat those. After 4 treatments (around 10 months after starting I was down to 5 a month and only the two hormonal migraines a month were bad enough that I required a shot which I gave myself and was not a narcotic). Now I am in a battle with Medicare to get the one medicine that actually helped my quality of life. Thanks to it being 6 months since my last dose I am spending my life behind dark, wrap around glasses, and I have almost constant headaches (including now). I didn't sleep yesterday except for a 2 hour blessed nap and I only was able to get 3 hours last night, if that. But besides for the migraines that the Botox is treating, it is also treating Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome & Fibromyalgia in my neck and shoulders.

Yes, $9k is a lot per year, but if I keep going downhill the way I am, I will easily spend that in 1 ER Visit and the amount of pain killers will go up (not cheap & not healthy especially when they contain Tylenol &/or alcohol in them.

My doctor jokes that I'm probably the only person w/o wrinkles to ask for Botox, but I know he jokes because it's not funny, and he knows I don't care about wrinkles. Now I have to take a shot in hopes that I will be able to write Medicare and pay my bills today. Life without Botox is no life for me.