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So. You know how I was all excited to get the tiny new “Remunity” pump for my Remodulin? The manufacturer, United Theraputics, promotes it as being super-convenient, easy, worry-free, etc. They are LIARS. Liars, liars, liars. Greedy liars.

The pharmacy nurse called today to set up an appointment to train me on the new system. And multiple appointments into the future before I’d be allowed to use it… which seemed odd for something “simple”. She showed up, we got started and within ten minutes I told her NOPE this isn’t going to work for me, let’s call it a day.

The problems are manifold. First, for some reason the little pre-filled medication cartridges need to be refrigerated, though it’s the very same shelf-stable medication I use in my old-style CADD MS-3 pump. Which means, no trips without bringing a cooler along. *eyeroll*

Second, they only ship ONE WEEK of medication at a time. So, every week I’d need to sit on hold with my specialty pharmacy to re-order, and then worry that UPS will have a delay and I won’t get my meds on time (which happens a lot more often than it should) and be home all day to take delivery… It might not sound like a big deal, but my stupid medication already uses up enough of my bandwidth and I don’t want to be forced to think about my horrible disease more than necessary.

And what if we went out of town? They’d need to ship to my hotel? Yeah I can’t see any problems there.

Third, the pump has no display and it DOESN’T KNOW HOW MUCH MEDICATION IT HAS IN IT. Read that again. So I would need to hope that it wouldn’t run out in the middle of the night and wake me up.

Fourth, if for some reason my medication cartridges aren’t delivered on time, I’d need to manually fill an empty cartridge, which isn’t a huge problem except that I’m not allowed to do so without first sitting on hold with the pharmacy and getting the OK from them. Please.

There’s more nonsense but those are the main issues. After I told Nurse Shelley that I was calling a halt to the whole thing, she said she totally understood and that only 25% of patients who try this new pump are happy to stick with it. That’s a pretty lousy rate, United Theraputics. Do better.

So, it’s the ol’ CADD MS-3 pump for me — which is no longer being manufactured so they just keep recycling refurbs, which I’m sure is why I’m having ever more problems with my pumps. I’m needing to swap them for “new” ones every couple months because they keep failing for one reason or another. Shelley says United Theraputics is designing a new pump to replace it, but of course they’re a goddamned greedy pharmaceutical company and they’ll only allow it to be used with name-brand Remodulin while my insurance co will only pay for the generic treprostinil.

Oh, yeah, the Remunity pump “needs” name-brand Remodulin, not the generic. Kinda funny how they released it just after the generic came out. What a coincidence, and what a convenient way to force ppl to buy the name-brand drug. At least the 25% of patients who stick with it lol.

Oh well. So be it. *shrug*