Insurance and Optimone instead of Restatis

[decaf]

I am in Germany. I have a prescription for Restatis from an American doctor and a German doctor. However, my insurance will only pay for it if I actually receive it in the US. That means they will not pay if I order it from an online pharmacy here in Germany, although it of course comes fron the US.

Also, my German doctor gave me Optimone which is cyclosporine for dogs. He said he has good results with it. However, I am scared to use it because it is stronger than Restatis.

Does anyone have experience with either insurance issues regarding REstatis or the use of Optimone for dogs?

Thanks.

[vman]

optimone

I did a web search for "optimone" and the only thing that came up was a male hormone complex....this /might/ be relevant, but it sounds like you're pretty sure it's a cyclosporine medication.

Sorry I can't help...but I'm definitely curious. I'm curious also about other cyclsoporine emulsions that aren't necessarily based on castor oil (as restasis is). While not definitive, another recent thread refers to the possibility that castor oil may not be an ideal choice.

[decaf]

Optimmune

Sorry, I made a spelling mistake in the previous post. It is spelled optimmune and has 2.0 mg cyclosporine per 1 g, white vaseline, corn oil, sterine (?) and alcohol from wax in vaseline (I am translating this from German, therefore it sounds strange). Restatis is - for me at least - hard to compare because it says it contains 0.05% cyclosporine. Would that mean that Restatis has 5 mg per 1 g which would make optimmune less strong?
In any case, I am a bit afraid to try it and wonder if anyone else has experience with it.

[kurt]

Does anyone have experience with either insurance issues regarding REstatis or the use of Optimone for dogs

You could email user KevinO on the forum lasermyeye.org/forums . He is a veterinarian who has tried cyclosporine. See: cyclorsporine in corn oil used by veterinarian.

Restatis is - for me at least - hard to compare because it says it contains 0.05% cyclosporine. Would that mean that Restatis has 5 mg per 1 g which would make optimmune less strong?

Each mL of RESTASIS® Ophthalmic Emulsion contains: Active: cyclosporine 0.05%. mL is the abbreviation for milliliter. One liter (which is just slightly less than a quart) has 1000 milliliters (mL's).
A gram is a unit of weight ( wie viel etwas wiegt). So you can't really compare the amount of cyclosporine in Optimmune and Restasis.

[decaf]

Thanks

Thanks Kurt, for the tip about KevinO. I read his entries in the other forum and have emailed him and hope for an answer to my question about his thoughts on the use of this "stronger" cyclosporine product. Which, by the way, he said contains .2%.