So a few context details...
im in western australia and on dsp, and need pbs scripts.
okay so I've had trouble keeping up with my injections due to anxiety. my hand locks and i cant even get the needle in my skin, let alone press the plunger down slowly. I was on stelara, but last september my ibd team changed me to steqeyma and im thinking this was a pure money decision. as there difference between them is 9k per month for them. i was lead to believe it was for my health.
it has taken months to set up, celltrion never answered the phone and due to anxiety i dont leave voice mail (nor do i look at my own voice mail). I have severe mental health issues. Im agoraphobic as well. so months of being untreated, trying and failing to set up this home delivered med, i finally get it and bam its a plunger style needle. i was excepting the pen.
another bit of context. im in an active flare with a bowel obstruction and a balloon to dilate the obstruction. im very unwell with a wide host of problems and am not doing well at all.
when i look up the meds both stelara and steqeyma i see pen options for both on the tga. yet my ibd team says they are not available and the chemists were even more confusing. one chemist refused to even look the tga number up and said no. the other looked the tga number up, said yes it is available and that they have it in stock. then we got to why i was asking and bam now they said it isnt available at all. i dont understand what is going on. it seems like there is a pen option but bureaucracy is getting in the way and they all use bureaucracy speak. so it is hard for me to know what is going on.
all i want is to get my treatment on track and my health. to feel better and not feel like im dying without treatment. i am not being hyperbolic, but literal. i can barely function daily. i have protein in my urine, a 2 year long knee injury that stops me from using stairs, hills or getting up and down from the floor, a brain fluid problem causing migraines and might be the issue with my spine as well. mitral valve problem and my brain is so messed up im in a constant state of panic using 4 tablets of clonodine a day just to keep my blood pressure in check. i have tried and tried and tried getting help from gps, nurses my specialists team and the er. they all pass me onto to someone else and i never get answers. Im sorry this is ranty im lost, confused and dont know what to do. im scared.
oh and i have zero faith in the medical field at this moment. a hospital put a false positive test for meth on my record, which lead to other doctors refusing to treat me and im just drug seeking. i have preciousness anemia diagnosed in the mid 200s and then i also had my terminal ileum and the valve removed. also all of my sigmoid and partial rectum. i was treated like a drug addict for taking Berocca to try and get my b12 up without my b12 needles. the gp said i would overdose and have serious medical consequences from taking too much b12. all while my b12 was low and my original gp who diagnosed b12 told me i couldnt overdose on it, i would just urinate it out. the hospital later admitted to putting a false positive on my health record and formally removed it. doesnt change the damage it caused me though.
anyone had any experience with this or have a better understanding of how this system works please?
note: sorry wasnt sure if to put this on legal or medical or crohns. kinda is all of them.