Pharma and price gouging

Yup. As I have often said in the gun threads, when you are in a true life or death situation, involving yourself or someone you sincerely care about, unless you are a clinical sociopath, the physiological response to this crisis is going to make you entirely worthless when it comes to tasks requiring fine motor control. Unless you are VERY rehearsed and VERY current in your skills with that syringe, you are going to screw it up. REALLY screw it up. As in REALLY in fatal ways screw it up.

That meme will kill people.

Note that the epipen, in Canada, costs about $100, or at least it did the last time I bought one for my wife.

I'd practiced with the trainer and still wasn't able to swing with enough force for the Epi to inject the first time. I'm just glad I'd used the trainer enough to know I hadn't heard the click and to try again. The time dilation on the drive to the ER was very much like the drive to the hospital when I was in labor.

I can't imagine how bad it would have been if money were a concern at the same time.

Here's a personal anecdote. I do resuscitation for a living. Like, I literally do it nearly everyday. Epi and similar meds aren't simply common meds to me, I deliver them to people on a regular basis. I know the science. I witness the effects in real time. I have the skills. And I even have practiced cognitive tools to stave off or kill panic. That's necessary in an anesthesiologist. When I lose my sh*t, everyone else follows, so it's very vital that I not lose my sh*t.

But I did once. It was a young woman. Previously healthy, so her dying would be completely unacceptable. Furthermore, I had no idea what was happening or whether I was even doing the right thing - not very common for an MD in my specialty. We make a habit of overpreparing. I wasn't yet in a complete panic, but I could feel the time dilation coming on and my hands were starting to shake. I tried to open the epi vial. I smashed it. With my fingers. What seemed like a reasonable amount of force in a normal state is total overkill when you're hopped on adrenaline yourself. I barely got another one out since my hands were shaking so badly. I smashed that one, too.

Fortunately, I remembered an old preparation I had in my toolbox from the week before - unused. I got that and everything started going right. I don't even know if I'd have been able to thread the needle tip into an open vial if my hands were shaking that badly.

If you're going to go with the meme solution, it is imperative that you have it prepped. Probably should buy multiple, since epi degrades in a plastic syringe, so you're going to have to reprep it at least once a week. If you have multiple syringes pre-prepped with the right dose, you will have a fighting chance.

LarryC wrote:

If it is, get the bottle and the needle, because that is then, literally better than nothing.

That was kind of the point of that kit. Though their recommendation was for that to be the thing kept at school for your kid to be administered by the school nurse. I'd have a pen at home unless there was literally no way for me to afford one.