Oh, Canada! (We hope!)

We got some distressing news today.  We should have known about it sooner, but somehow we missed the news. The FDA has banned the generic (and inexpensive) colchicine pills in the U.S. and now just one company seems to have exclusive rights to produce it. I might have that a little wrong, but it's something like that.

Since, due to blatant discrimination, I'm not covered under either of my Moms' prescription drug plans, this makes the medication which prevents flare-ups of  Shar Pei Fever very, very hard to afford. This change caused the price to go from an average of 10 cents a pill to five dollars a pill. That's a difference of a lot of green papers when you take it every day. This is causing a lot of problems for the Shar Pei community in the United States, as you can well imagine. You see, colchicine is mostly a human drug and it's mostly used for gout, but it's also the only thing that seems to control Shar Pei Fever, which I've got. Luckily, so far, Franklin doesn't seem to have it, but he's young yet. And of course he's simply frantic with worry for me. There is quite a lot of assistance available for humans who need it but now can't afford the only approved type, but not for doggies. More blatant discrimination.

Lola and Franklin contemplate this unfortunate development.

But it looks like Canada might just come to our rescue! It seems as though we can get this from Canada at prices similar to what we were paying before, or at least not much more. We are going to give it a shot tomorrow and cross our paws that the inexpensive kind continues to be available in Canada.