A Diagnosis? Is It Worth This?

Well we have some medicine, so hopefully we’ll have no more middle of the night puking. The pediatrician thinks that the Big One is suffering from GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). Yep it appears it’s reflux that is causing all the fun around here.

So she gave us a prescription for Omeprazole, (Prilosec). Okay, y’all this stuff tastes like rotting fish in a bucket of old salt water. It is absolutely wretched. Yes I did taste it and feel horrible for trying to force 3.5ml down her throat.

So I turned to my favorite source of experts, the moms on Baby Center. They are the best, most knowledgeable group of gals around. They recommended switching to the Prevacid SoluTabs. Apparently they are strawberry flavored and dissolve fairly quickly. So I e-mail our pediatrician and asked about them.

She responded and said Prevacid was safe and she would put the prescription in. I was feeling confident that we were going to get this puking under control. So I head to the pharmacy leaving the Husband in charge of the bedtime routine. (He’s got Reserves stuff this weekend, so I am on my own for three days). The lovely tech at the pharmacy tells me it’s about a 25 minute wait. So 45 minutes later, the Big One’s name finally flashed on the magic screen.

I go get in line and once it’s my turn am dismayed when I am handed a bottle of liquid Prevacid and told that Kaiser “doesn’t cover” the SoluTabs, that they are “too expensive.”

And then the tech proceeds to tell me my co-pay for this liquid crap is $90. OH! And they “owe” me two bottles because they are currently short on supply.

Then the pharmacist comes over to do his “consult” since it’s a new medicine. All the man did was read the box to me. Then I asked about mixing the medicine with some juice or apple sauce or yogurt. He tells me he thinks it’s okay. So I ask about the flavor of the medicine. I had read on the box that it said “cherry, banana, mint.” I was trying to surmise if it was all three “flavors” mixed in one or what. He tells me that the flavor is “citric acid flavor… so it tastes like orange” he says. Too tired to argue I took the little bag and waked out.

Turns out the first two ingredients listed on the box are “citric acid and flavors…” So thank you very much, Mr. Kaiser pharmacist for being completely useless. And also thank you to Ms. Kaiser Pediatrician for $90 worth of liquid crap that I have to try and force down the Big One’s throat.