My Mom diagnosed with Superior macular BRVO, Haemorrhage at Fovea, Peripapillary atrophy (superior macular branch retinal vein occlusion) in her Right Eye and for the past 1 and half years she had been taking injections for the same....Initially they gave her Avastin 3-4 times at a gap of 1.5 - 2 months....but now my Doctor has been giving her Ozurdex at a gap of 2.5-3 months...We havent tried with pellet, Eylea or Penecilin etc yet....I am from India and here the cost of Avastin was around Rs. 8000 and now Ozurdex is costing Rs 30,000...As i understand we cannot claim insurance for this and i have been reading some posts on this just recently....I dont understand medical terms that much...so just wanted to check if there are any other alternatives to this...I mean a cheaper generic injection that wont have any side effects...i guess Ozurdex does have some side effects too...any suggestions on this will be of immense help....
Hi, I think the reason insurance doesn't cover it is because it's considered an "experimental" drug. BUT, the good news is that the drug companies that manufacture them usually have programs where they can supply you with the drug at a much-reduced cost, if you qualify. So, I would recommend contacting the companies directly and see if any of them offer such a program. My mother had macular degeneration and had Lucentis I think it was. Stopped the MD dead in its tracks! Good luck.
Hubby has been getting injections for many years now. For a time, it was a few injections of Avastin, then okay for a few months, now it is every month. He has a central retinal vein occlusion in his left eye so has only side vision there. We keep going forward with the right eye with first Avastin, then Lucentis for many, many months, then Eyelea for about 3 months. After the 3rd all went downhill, so the Retina Specialist went back to Lucentis, then added Ozurdex (every 3 mos), steroid implant, first one being October 27, 2015, this improved his color distinguishing but at or before the 3rd month, his sight was pretty much gone. He had his 2nd Ozurdex last week and is slowly gaining some sight back. This is a monthly battle. There are so many fighting to lose their sight, we just try to keep him going with some sight anyway. We are both 76 so not as bad for those much younger but hard losing your sight.
Thanks so much....I will check with the company in that case
For my Mom...Doctor is saying he would start giving her Ozurdex every 4-5 months going forward...she is 62 now...just last week she took the 3rd injection of Ozurdex... Her vision slightly improves after taking the injection but after 2-3 months its back to where it was...Doctor is saying he would prolong it a bit going forward...maybe 1 in 5 months or so
Ralph's (hubby) retina specialist states to us that the steroid implant normally becomes ineffective after the 3 month mark which we are experiencing. Some color back with the 2nd implant but sight not improved much.