Bye Bye Supermodel Drug

Zonisamide takes 105 hours to fully leave the human body. I stopped taking it last Wednesday. This means that sometime in the middle of the night, I became prescription-drug free for the first time in a shade under 4 years. Why drop the pills? Well, for one they made me ornery. Two, they made me not like food. Three, they made me stupid, especially when I took 6 per day.



So imagine a dumb, moody, skinny version of yourself* that you have to inhabit, just because of little capsules that apparently cure your rare form of epilepsy. Why wouldn't you take them out of fear? I'll tell you the fourth reason- big pharma is big-time evil. Read something about it here.

If you're not the clicking type, let me explain. I was on 6 pills a day of a designer (not generic) drug at the start (Zonegran), which costs $2 a pill. That's $12 a day and ~$360 per month. I paid $25, and my medical insurance was paid for by my parents then, but now it's $110 a month (for the second tier of coverage). So where did the drug company get its $250 a month? From taxpayers (through subsidies) and the healthy.

$250 a month is $3000 per year that people were paying for me. Thanks for that, everyone. But I can do it all alone now. How? Exercise and stress management. Live life and have fun, not worrying about money and all that jazz. Oh, and sorry to my neurologist, I'm sure Esai/Elan/Pfizer weren't happy with your lowered prescription rate of the drug. Also, my weight data was probably unreliable because I did a little fibbing about what I was taking... Sorry big Pharma, I know you were trying to make this the new weight loss drug on the sly, without my consent. Why? 'Cause I googled my drug.



Also, sorry to anybody I've been a whiny baby to the last 4 years. I don't feel that part of me anymore. And it's great.

*That's why it's called a supermodel drug.