One of the realities of having a disability is that the person is likely to have a chronic illness that requires medical management. For someone with schizoaffective disorder, this looks like ongoing medication, regular visits with a psychiatrist, and therapy. If you don’t know, psychosis, such as hallucinations and delusions, may be controlled or prevented by this regular medication. The downside for people who take an antipsychotic would be the side effects.
As an example, an antipsychotic can have the side effects of metabolic syndrome and even diabetes, depending on the side effects of that particular medication. In addition, people I spoke to who have bipolar disorder have said they gained more than 50 pounds on an antipsychotic. To avoid psychosis, unfortunately, it was worth it.
A psychiatrist said there’s an alternative antipsychotic available, which could lead to weight loss, called Libalvi. Excited, I looked up the medication on my insurance provider’s website. The medication isn’t covered. It’s about $2000 for 30 pills. With coupons, a person might be able to get it for $1700.
To see if there was a cheaper route to get the medication, I looked up the medication on Cost Plus Drugs by Mark Cuban. A pharmacy that sells medicine at lower costs. Unfortunately, they don’t carry it according to the website at the time of this post. That means that someone looking to take Libalvi may not be able to get it due to costs, and there is no recourse because the manufacturer has no incentive to make the medication accessible. Imagine being on a medication that can cause diabetes and severe weight gain, finding one that does not have that side effect, and then being unable to get it due to prohibitive costs.
Having a chronic mental illness leads to a lot of sacrifice. In some cases the loss of health and the threat of diabetes. Furthermore, patients may have to live with uncontrollable weight gain. Sometimes the side effects are so bad that a person may question their sanity for taking the medication; the irony is that they have no choice, as the medication is the only way to silence the psychosis.