EpiPens aren't just for food allergies. My late wife carried one because she was allergic to bee stings and spider bites. The problem is that they are soo bloody expensive. The actual drug (epinephrine) is dirt cheap, but the makers of the EpiPen brand get over $600 for a pair of them (and they're only sold in pairs). Generics run about $300. And they have a shelf life -- if you or you kid needs one, prepare to fork over that $600 every year.
This is one of the biggest rip-offs in the pharmaceutical industry.
Huh. I deleted some snide remarks in my last post about the Rx requirement being merely for protection of the medical industry's rice bowl, but didn't know about the cost of those things.
Yeah, making them automatic adds some engineering costs to the applicators, but holy cow, $300-$600 for a pair of them....
Are there cheaper sources for them? Cananda? Europe?
Are there any equivalent (or nearly so) natural "anti-allergens"? jamisjockey? KD5NRH? (I have noticed, without claiming statistical significance, that Vitamin C reduces my allergy to the pine pollen around here --psychosomatic or not.)
And I ask again, what is the downside of improper application, apart from possible infection of the injection site?
Terry