Prograf

Share your thoughts about Prograf.

Tags: Prograf, Transplant, effects, medications, side

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hostess Risé on July 21, 2012 at 8:46am

I have been taking Prograf since 1996. My kidneys and liver are loving this drug. I think it has to do with my healthy diet.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on July 22, 2012 at 9:21am

No problems with prograf so far - 8 months. If all continues to go well, I may ask to be transitioned to generic tacrolimus to lower medication costs. We'll see.

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Permalink Reply by nancy Cowart on December 29, 2012 at 5:29pm

If you have Medicare/Medicaid you should not be paying ANYTHING for prograf, cellcept or prednisone. It was a year before I found this out and some time before I got re-imbursed. ow if they'd only put Valcyte in that first tier. Check with your Pharmisist and he/she will help guide your. Your Team at the Hospital can tell you which meds are in each tier. Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Patty on February 5, 2013 at 2:38pm

Nancy my husband is taking Rapamune he has medicare, and its costing him $548.00 a month, he has had his heart for 15 years as of Oct 2012. they said because he had his heart transplant prior to medicare he has to pay under the plan d, which us costing us a fortune for the first couple of months. He was on prograf but had so many side effects m they had to put him back on rapamune, How is it that you shouldn't be paying anything for prograf, just curious

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Permalink Reply by Shelly on February 6, 2013 at 12:00pm

Medicare only covers kidney transplant meds and then only for 3 years. Personally I think they should cover ALL transplants med and for the life of the transplant. People are USUALLY healthier (and cost less medically) than when they need an organ! Medicare covers dialysis, which is really expensive, and the coverage of transplant and the meds seems to go along with that. When my son started dialysis (almost 20 years ago - he was 10 months old), he was on peritoneal dialysis at home. We did all the set up and hooking him up, breaking down the machine, etc. Just for the rental of the machine and the supplies it was over $500 A DAY!!! I cannot even imagine what it costs now! Then we still had the doctors following him (they charged $300 a month just to look at his chart basically!!), and doctor appointments, labs, meds, etc. I am so grateful we had amazing private insurance and Bryan got Medicare when he started dialysis (they didn't have plan D back then) and he also had Medicaid because we were low enough income at the time that he qualified for SSI. So most of his care was covered. Our insurance company even wanted to buy the dialysis machine! It would have saved them money in the long run, but the hospital said it wasn't an option because they have a set fee for the machine and supplies. Insurance bought his feeding pump and his blood pressure machine though! It wasn't even an actual insurance company. It was a trust fund through a union my husband was in (he worked at a grocery store). We only had to pay union dues in order to get the medical coverage. And with his low income, it turned out to be only $15 a month! I sure do wish we could go back to that!! Of course before he changed jobs, they had changed the rules so that incoming employees didn't get as great of benefits and there was a waiting period or something. Our medical insurance now is through my husband's work (he works at Montana State University doing computer stuff - haha, I really don't know exactly what he does) and our medical insurance (which is an HMO) premiums are over $1000 a month. Thankfully the university pays about $600 of it. It's not that great of coverage though, we are drowning in copays. Very frustrating. Thankfully my son also has autism (although would be good if he didn't!!!), so he was able to get SSI again with Medicaid when he turned 18. So usually we don't have to wonder how we are going to pay for his care.

Does your husband have any other insurance besides Medicare? Sometimes there are programs out there than can help with copays and such. Hard to find them though.

Shelly

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Starks on February 21, 2013 at 10:23am

I have Medicare n my husband insurance and I still have to pay sometimes a fee.

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Permalink Reply by AndyPebworth on January 20, 2013 at 5:19pm

I had my liver transplant 2 years ago next month and I was taking prograf 3 pills (1mg) twice a day. My kidneys were not liking it much, I was on dialysis for the first month or so. Anyway gradually the decreased my prograf (Tacholimus) to 2 in the morning a one at night. and started me with Cellcept 1 pill (250) twice a day. My prescriptions are free most of the year and $1.10 the rest of the year. I have a hybrid insurance of MediCal/Medicare called OneCare. What is the difference between prograf and Tacholimus. I thought they were the same except one was generic.

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Permalink Reply by Bobbiejo Winfrey on January 20, 2013 at 8:15pm

I think that Prograf is the brand name and tacrolimus is the generic. I believe they both have the same active ingredient but may differ in the inactive ingredients. Best of wishes.

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Starks on February 21, 2013 at 10:28am

I was told that that sometimes when generic form changes to another generic form that sometimes it does NOT contain the exact amount of ingredients as the first one. I would suggest to talk with your transplant team first. I cannot take generic form due to this finding.

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Permalink Reply by David on February 6, 2013 at 12:23pm

prograf is the brand, tacrolimus is generic, prograf costs 1200.00 dollars a month tacro is 225.00 a month ..

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Permalink Reply by Melissa Murray on February 9, 2013 at 3:14pm

Hi Mark... Just be sure to watch your blood levels of tacro closely after the switch to generic. Due to a perfect storm of circumstances, I didn't, and had a rejection episode due to extremely low levels after my drug company switched me. I'm ok now, but I never have gained back the function I lost during that episode....just be very vigilant for a while after the switch. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Shelly on February 10, 2013 at 12:12pm

So true to remember Melissa! When Bryan switched his doctors didn't think to see it was an issue, but I insisted on checking his levels more frequently at first. Back then he was in pediatric care, so had labs done once a month anyway, but it would be scary if it happened now that his adult docs only check labs every 3 months (and the neph even said that they don't always check drug levels since he's been so stable for so long). Uggggg..... he had rejection 5 years out due to a medication we tried for his autism. It interfered with his Neoral levels. We kept checking them and increasing the dose, but they never went up. He was already on 1/2 dose of CellCept due to severe diarrhea, so he just didn't have the coverage he needed. They were low for about 9 months with his creatinine slowly climbing. I had to push them into doing a biopsy. They said it couldn't be rejection and it must be med toxicity and were just doing to send us home on a lower dose of Neoral. That would have not been good! I'm glad they actually listened to me and did the biopsy. They sent us home (we live in Montana, his doctors were in Seattle). Then 3 days later I got a call telling us we had to get on a plane that night back to Seattle because he was in rejection. Whew.... That's when he was changed to Prograf and Rapamune. Thankfully the change from brand name to generic didn't seem to make any difference with him, but I know that when Rapamune becomes available in generic, I will be insisted on more frequent labs again!