I tried Afrezza- but I don't use it now
Aug 6, 2015 19:21:38 GMT -5
via mobile
mannmade, notamnkdmillionaire, and 16 more like this
Post by rozale on Aug 6, 2015 19:21:38 GMT -5
Hello Everyone,
Thought I would post my experience with Afrezza for you all to digest.
My background: I think it's important to give a bit of background info on my self to help you all gauge how highly or lowly you should take my opinion/ experience. I have an engineering degree, and working on an MBA at a top 20 university. More importantly, I have lived with diabetes (type 1) since I was 4 years old, I am in my early 30's now. My A1C levels for the past 6-7 years have hovered between 5.7-6.5 (this is considered excellent control for type 1 diabetics). Earlier in my life I went into a few comas due to hypoglycemic events occurring. I still have hypoglycemic events (not as drastic as comas though) at least monthly.
A few months back I had my endo order a spirometer to do my lung capacity check and write me up a prescription of Afrezza. After a few minutes of figuring out how to use the spiro, the doc wrote up my prescription then gave me a few boxes of Afrezza.
I went home a bit excited and a bit apprehensive about taking Afrezza. Happy that I might not have to take shots anymore and potentially lose a bit of weight, and scared a bit about the potential long term effects on my lungs (I imagine potential layers of powder at the bottom of my lungs... Which I know is not the case).
I take a lot of insulin daily partly due to my insulin resistance and partly due to just having to keep up with what I eat. The 2 boxes of samples lasted me about 3-4 days. The results of taking Afrezza were great in my opinion. I was able to take a puff (3-4 actually) before dinner, after eating a carb heavy dinner my sugar was still about 200 (it was about 200 pre-meal), at this point I took my corrective dose, another 16 units of Afrezza . I waited 40 minutes check my sugar... It was 140. I figured I would check again in about 20 minutes, since this is how long the full cycle of Afrezza should take , according to my endo. 60 minutes passed instead as I got caught up doing other things, my sugar at this point , 140. Hrmm,at this point I figured I would go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night to make sure I was stable. 4 hours later another check, my sugar level was 141. Went back to sleep, in the morning my sugar level was 148. Great, I was sold. With hunalog and novolog I would expected to have a huge variance between my morning and night time levels. Typically its +/- 60 (depending on my dinner meal of course). With Afrezza , the insulin fully took its course in 40 minutes rather than the 3-4 hours that the other insulins took..
This event repeated itself the next 3 nights. I wanted more, I called up target to refill my prescription, I get to target 2-3 days after calling since they had to order the insulin. The pharmacist told me it would be $840 dollars , holy shit! I asked him if my insurance covered any of it, his response was yes ... Without insurance it would have been about $1400-1500. At that point I said, thanks but no thanks, I make a decent wage but I can't justify paying 10x as much for this insulin.
So, the whole point to this is, that Afrezza works well. But the company and the product won't sell until they lower the prices or until they get the insurance companies to cover a larger portion. Oh btw the card that sanofi gives to make sure your copay does not exceed $30 is only good for the first $125, so my out of pocket would have been about $715... Still too much! When my insurance company brings the cost down to a reasonable amount I'll definitely be on board, but until then I'm on the sideline.
I hope this helped a few of my fellow investors make a decision on whether to buy or sell MNKD. I made my decision recently, i bought some this week on the dip.
Cheers!
Thought I would post my experience with Afrezza for you all to digest.
My background: I think it's important to give a bit of background info on my self to help you all gauge how highly or lowly you should take my opinion/ experience. I have an engineering degree, and working on an MBA at a top 20 university. More importantly, I have lived with diabetes (type 1) since I was 4 years old, I am in my early 30's now. My A1C levels for the past 6-7 years have hovered between 5.7-6.5 (this is considered excellent control for type 1 diabetics). Earlier in my life I went into a few comas due to hypoglycemic events occurring. I still have hypoglycemic events (not as drastic as comas though) at least monthly.
A few months back I had my endo order a spirometer to do my lung capacity check and write me up a prescription of Afrezza. After a few minutes of figuring out how to use the spiro, the doc wrote up my prescription then gave me a few boxes of Afrezza.
I went home a bit excited and a bit apprehensive about taking Afrezza. Happy that I might not have to take shots anymore and potentially lose a bit of weight, and scared a bit about the potential long term effects on my lungs (I imagine potential layers of powder at the bottom of my lungs... Which I know is not the case).
I take a lot of insulin daily partly due to my insulin resistance and partly due to just having to keep up with what I eat. The 2 boxes of samples lasted me about 3-4 days. The results of taking Afrezza were great in my opinion. I was able to take a puff (3-4 actually) before dinner, after eating a carb heavy dinner my sugar was still about 200 (it was about 200 pre-meal), at this point I took my corrective dose, another 16 units of Afrezza . I waited 40 minutes check my sugar... It was 140. I figured I would check again in about 20 minutes, since this is how long the full cycle of Afrezza should take , according to my endo. 60 minutes passed instead as I got caught up doing other things, my sugar at this point , 140. Hrmm,at this point I figured I would go to sleep and wake up in the middle of the night to make sure I was stable. 4 hours later another check, my sugar level was 141. Went back to sleep, in the morning my sugar level was 148. Great, I was sold. With hunalog and novolog I would expected to have a huge variance between my morning and night time levels. Typically its +/- 60 (depending on my dinner meal of course). With Afrezza , the insulin fully took its course in 40 minutes rather than the 3-4 hours that the other insulins took..
This event repeated itself the next 3 nights. I wanted more, I called up target to refill my prescription, I get to target 2-3 days after calling since they had to order the insulin. The pharmacist told me it would be $840 dollars , holy shit! I asked him if my insurance covered any of it, his response was yes ... Without insurance it would have been about $1400-1500. At that point I said, thanks but no thanks, I make a decent wage but I can't justify paying 10x as much for this insulin.
So, the whole point to this is, that Afrezza works well. But the company and the product won't sell until they lower the prices or until they get the insurance companies to cover a larger portion. Oh btw the card that sanofi gives to make sure your copay does not exceed $30 is only good for the first $125, so my out of pocket would have been about $715... Still too much! When my insurance company brings the cost down to a reasonable amount I'll definitely be on board, but until then I'm on the sideline.
I hope this helped a few of my fellow investors make a decision on whether to buy or sell MNKD. I made my decision recently, i bought some this week on the dip.
Cheers!
I appreciate you sharing your insight & first hand experience with Afrezza . I wonder how many others have had similar experiences . I was fortunate to recently have a phone conversation w/ an Afrezzauser ( I respect their privacy and for that I haven't mentioned it here before ) . One thing he did point out to me that seems appropriate to share now is he said that one box of 90 cartridges is not enough for a type 1 , as a correction dose is often needed . I'm wondering if that's why your script cost was so high ...