(no subject)

[yendi]

Hooray! Claritin goes over-the-counter next week! Soon we'll be as cool (and allergy-free) as Canadians!

Comments

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

I am also exceedingly excited by this....

[mfree.livejournal.com]

Yippeee! No more pseudoephedrine head!

Re: Claritin as over the counter

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

That's nifty even though Claritin does nothing for me or cindygerb. I did a quick search of "over-the-counter Zyrtec -Claritin" and didn't get any results worth mentioning. Zyrtec is Cindy's drug of choice and we need to make it back up to Vancouver and buy some.

Re: Claritin as over the counter

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

Heh ... and apparently I'm not alone in my desire for Zyrtec to follow Claritin's lead. :)

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

I shall celebrate when Zyrtec does this ... Claritin gives me insomnia. Granted it's insomnia without a stuffy nose, but all in all I'd rather sleep AND be able to breathe.

[eudaimonia.livejournal.com]

The only downside to this is that insurance companies won't pay for it once it goes over the counter...

[yendi]

For me, I'd have to make an appointment with my doctor ($10 co-pay, going up to $15 co-pay after the new year), followed by one with the allergist (another $10/15 co-pay), before getting my prescription. By that point, judging from the article, it would be pretty damned close to breaking even, but without the months of bureaucratic hassle. It's a trade-off I can handle (especially since my allergies are seasonal and situational (other people's pets)).

[silme.livejournal.com]

And the British! We have it over the counter too (and in generic form -- I buy the Boots brand), although we spell it Clarityn. Zyrtek also is available over the counter also here. And for those worried that insurance companies won't cover it, here you can still have your doctor write a prescription for it (a friend gets a month at a time; here you buy a week's worth in one packet) so that the NHS will cover the cost and you only pay the prescription fee. However, an American friend here visiting recently needed some for her daughter, and she told me that with what their co-pay is nowadays, she didn't think the price here was bad at all. (She truly was impressed by what you could get here over the counter. Of course, I told her I stock up on 500-tablet bottles of Ibuprofen in the US because you can't buy that many here at a time.)

[eudaimonia.livejournal.com]

We got a notice in the mail the other day that our insurance company won't cover it once it goes over the counter. Neato, huh?

[silme.livejournal.com]

Sad. My sister uses Allegra only because her insurance won't cover Claritin. :( Insurance companies suck. You have to have insurance, but half the time it doesn't do what you need it to do. :(

The NHS has problems and a lot of well-deserved bad press, but at least it's there. The prescription fee (£6.20) is less than my old $15 co-pay in the US. When, oh, when will US politicians (besides Clinton, who was forced to give up on it) realise that the United States needs a national health system of some sort??? (Friends here can't believe that women actually have to pay for birth control in the US.) *sigh* I wonder how much Claritin will cost over the counter? While cleaning out the bathroom cupboard, I discovered we had six weeks worth of Clarityn hidden in there -- with expiry dates in 2004! Whoopee! I think I stocked up a lot when it was on sale this summer -- Boots had a three for the price of two campaign.

[yendi]

That's kinda how my supply of Claritin and Allegra got full until recently -- when I last went to Canada, the local drugstore had both as two-for-one specials. I bought about 100 pills for about $10 US.

And a hell yeah! on the need for a national health care system.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I've been hearing a lot of ads for Claritin on the radio -"Claritin, available soon at Walgreens". Amusing, since there are no Walgreens here to start with. I suppose it is possible that there are some within that radio station's broadcast area, since they've jacked up their power so much over the past few years, but there aren't any in its target market area. I hope the ads are being paid for mostly by Claritin's maker, not by Walgreen's, because if Walgreen's is paying, they aren't getting much for their money.

[toratigris.livejournal.com]

Actually, the bad thing about this is that apparently several insurance companies have said that not only will they not now pay for Claritin, but they also will not pay for other prescription allergy medicines (like Allegra or Zyrtec), just tell you to get Claritin on your own. Since Claritin doesn't work for everyone (including me), this means I may have to pay the full prescription price for Allegra or do without.

There have been calls for the FDA to allow Allegra and Zyrtec to be available O-T-C, but they haven't moved forward on that (they wouldn't have with Claritin either, had the drug company not changed its mind and pushed for it, after previously resisting it).