Generic Keppra (levetiracetam) information

Generic Keppra - levetiracetam - is now available in the US. I normally order 200 500mg pills from Canada, so they last me quite a while, and I hadn't priced the new generic, until today. ****ETA: Blog entry for 6/09 shows the actual Costco price of $94.73 for 200 500mg pills!!!

I was picking up Milk's phenobarb at Costco this afternoon, so I asked for a price for generic Keppra. And was shocked! About $100 less than I have been paying from Canada, and I don't think that the AAA discount was applied. (Sometimes Costco says that their prices are already so low that they don't give the extra discount.)

This is the total cost the pharmacist gave me for 200 500mg levetiracetam pills at Costco: $129.70!

On-line, the prices apparently include the cost of shipping and handling - here are their generic on-line prices for 500mg pills:

30 pills - 28.71
50 pills - 43.55
100 pills - 81.91

(I don't know if doubling this price would be the actual charge for 200 pills or not, but that would be a whole lot more than $129.70! It makes me think maybe the pharmacist made a mistake, but I asked her to doublecheck, and she said the $129.70 was correct.)

I just opened the second Canadian bottle of 100 tablets, but it makes me feel like I should rush out and buy some more at Costco RIGHT NOW!

A day late.....

Last night, around 11:15 PM, was the moment of the second anniversary of Milk's first seizure. Not such a happy event, needless to say, but there is some comfort to be taken now, I guess, from the fact that he's still here, he's still sweet and loving, and it's been a good while - *anti-jinx* - since you-know-what. I had NO idea what to expect that first night, which was probably a good thing..... I want to thank all those who gave me moral support to get through the hard patches here.

So far, so good.

I am, as usual, afraid to actually SAY anything about Milk's seizures. *anti-jinx* all over the place. I'm a little vague on the exact dates/times/etc, but since the return of the bloodwork a month or so ago, with numbers that I wasn't crazy about, I have reduced both his phenobarb and keppra by a small amount. We're still dosing by the "chunk method", which is an inefficient way to do it, I realize, but it seems to have worked for the last 7 months or so. He now gets:

10:30 AM - 1/2 phenobarb tablet (8mg.approx), 125mg (approx)levetiracetam (generic Keppra), and 1/2 Marin tablet. Depending on the size of the 125mg "chunk", sometimes I may add a smaller 1/8 tablet chunk, just for good measure. (Just as an aside, the phenobarbital is made by WestWard pharmaceuticals, which is located in, amazingly, that rich Arab country in Africa - oh, I hate my memory, or lack of it these days - where they built the indoor ski resort, and the giant hotel, and all the American universities have branches now? DUBAI!! Someone from there looked at one of these blogs... crap. When I remember it, I'll come and edit this. Anyway, these pills are better - although they're harder to find, and Costco charges more for them than CVS does for the other brand - but these are a flat, thin pill. The other ones are so small and tall/thick that splitting them into two, much less four pieces would be impossible. And the levetiracetam comes from www.universaldrugstore.com in Canada. I haven't priced the new USA generic Keppra, but someone else said they were still $1 a pill....)

6:00 PM - 125mg Keppra, 1/2 Marin tablet. (Occasionally, I give him 1/4 tablet of Pepcid AC here, because the Marin can cause stomach upset unless there's food in there, and Milk's eating is a little erratic, to say the least. He does eat on his own, but very rarely the minute I put his dish down, and he's likely to graze most of the day from that first feeding. He's one of the most enthusiastic consumers of the raw chicken/supplements - he loves his chunks.

10:00 PM - 3/4 (approx. 12mg) phenobarbital

2:00 AM - 125mg Keppra + 1 chunk (approx 1/8 of a 500mg tablet). Now, my math is poor, but I think 500mg divided by 8 equals about 65mg, which seems like so much more than one of those little chunks could possibly be..... I don't know. At any rate, I am still using uneven dosages, which is frowned upon, but it makes sense to me because almost all of his seizures were in the very early morning - so, I want to make sure that there's plenty of medication keeping his brain in order during the night. It might not be correct, but until something happens to convince me that I'm wrong, I'm going with it, because, as I said above - "so far, so good...."

This is the Annual Spring Neutered Male Crazy Period around here. And this year, we've added the presence of Cinnaminnie - unspayed Feral Female Extraordinaire, and her slightly nightmarish - but at least SHE's spayed - daughter, the lovely but exceptionally grumpy and aggressive, Toot the Tortie. So, now, the battle is between crazy and mean, apparently. Tootle and Minnie are both quite fearsome to the boys; a significant part of their days is spent chasing shrieking males twice their size up and down the steps. Tootie has devoted most of her attention to Burble lately. He outweighs her by a good five pounds, and is three times her size, but she doesn't let that deter her. She butts him aside from his food, she growls at him any time he walks by, and she will sit in the doorway to the bathroom, where he likes to explore the closet, waiting for him to show up so she can launch herself upon him. Minnie's favorite target is poor Scruffy, who has never bothered anyone else, ever. I watch The Girls carefully to make sure they're not aggressive with Milkshake, because he's still wobbly enough that I don't want him falling off something whilst trying to escape their not-so-loving attentions.

I guess, as Johnny Carson used to say (or DID he?), And so it goes...... Maybe it was Red Skelton. (I touched Red Skelton once. Well, actually, I bumped into him coming down the steps into the formal entry in Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. That was in the days before celebrities had entourages, I guess. Nothing like a little free association every now and then, right?) Or maybe it was Charles Couralt who used to say that...

The other day, a very interesting person who owns a bunch of ferrets, one of whom is diabetic, posted a picture on the Feline Diabetes Message Board. I don't know where she got it from, and I am frankly ashamed that I didn't ask her if I could "borrow" her picture, but it struck me as being SO funny, I could hardly see straight. So, on this note, I'm done for today:

Such a nice comment ( #2)

And this one, which came today from my too-faraway-to-hug internet friend, Linda:

"Those of us who have been truly owned by a cat do know that look that passes between us. Not ever having children I can't be sure, but I always think of it as the same kind of bond exists between a parent and a child, only better. To look at them and have so much love in your heart that you feel like your chest will burst."

I don't want to be sloppy about all this, although sloppy is one of my most well-developed attributes, sadly. But I've been really upset for two days about the story on the internet about the kid who put a video of himself torturing his cat on YouTube. I can hardly bear to think about the whole mess. The nightmarish kid, the poor cat, the parents who are going to have to try to "fix" this kid......it all makes me sick.

But - it makes me feel better about the world and all the sad and unpleasant things in it to know that there are people like Linda and Leeta and Hope and Marianne (and, I guess, me and a ton of other people on the Feline Diabetes Message Board, and the Yahoo Epikitty Board and wherever) who do care and who find love and satisfaction and reward beyond description from the sentient furry beings who share our lives. Sometimes things DO work out just right, I guess.

such a nice comment........

There have only been a few comments to the blogs for my two cats. And they've been mostly from people who "know" the cats. Well, or who know me.... Anyway, tonight, there was the following really nice comment from "Leeta." It made me cry. Let me post it here, and then I'll explain.

leeta said...

I just wanted to tell you that I love your relationship with Milk. I don't even quite know how I managed to end up here (seems to me last conscious moment I was looking at something with Verizon billing and I guess I wandered a bit! LOL!) but I am glad that I did. So many things reminded me of so many days with my baby girl Miss Kitty. She didn't have epilepsy but that was one of the few things she didnt have. The last year of her earthly life she had two strokes and congestive heart failure but right through it all she wanted to keep going. Until well, I guess that one day or really a couple days before, she got tired or just didn't want to keep doing it. Its been 1 year and almost 3 months since I've gotten to see her little kitty face shining up at me, containing all the love in the world, and not a day goes by that I don't miss her. I hope that Milk lives another 20 years or so, long enough for them to figure out how to give them human lifespans so that you guys can grow old together. Relationships like that should never be apart. Thank you for posting your blog. It is beautiful.

March 4, 2009 3:11 PM"

I am so touched by this nice person's taking the time to make this comment. And for her to talk about her Miss Kitty's face "shining up at me" - sometimes you sort of think that the way you feel about your cat might just be a smidge over the top or something. The "crazy cat lady" syndrome. SO, it's nice to have someone else freely talking about her love and affection for her cat, and to think that we all are not (necessarily!) crazy or nuts or emotionally stunted or whatever. We just love them. Right? Thank you, Leeta, and I hope that Miss Kitty sends you another cat for you to love desperately and wholeheartedly, and to love you back...