Possible solutions to med stockpile-

1) If missing a single dose is not life or health threatening, skip one dose per week and toss in a different bottle. When you have a months worth work the bottle into your dosage rotation keeping the newest supply from the pharmacy as your emergency stock.

2) Talk to your doctor about your needs. You may be able to get the doc to write script for a higher dose for a month or two. You don't take the extra, you save it. Same story, keep the newest supply as the emergency stock.

3) Get you doc to write script for another month's supply. Have it filled at a second pharmacy and pay for it yourself.

I have used all of the above methods at one time or another and currenty have a 3 month supply of all my meds. I sleep better knowing I am covered in a short term crisis.

I have little patience with the crap the medical insurance companies serve up these days. The insurance companies are denying you the ability to take care of yourself in a crisis. It would be interesting to see what happened to the folks in New Orleans that were dependent on medications after the hurricane. We live in a society that is almost completely dependent on constant outside help to function. Shut off the supply of any critical resource and the system breaks down rapidly.

Natural disasters tend to be mostly contained to small geographic regions. Even a mess like we saw in the Gulf states can be salvaged because the rest of the country still functions. A deadly pandemic sweeping the country would be a real disaster as geographic boundries would not be much of a barrier. I'm still guessing (and hoping) the much anticipated bird flu pandemic is bogus fear nongering. Still, I am making basic preparations.

Much like the Y2K fiasco, I prepared and have no regrets. I am now better prepared for the next "real" fiasco.

TR (Taking a chill pill)