If you have migraines you’ve probably heard about Aimovig.
Hi this is curtis alexander i’m a pharmacist and in today’s video i’m going to talk about emovig which is an injectable it’s a subcutaneous injection that you give once a month to help prevent migraines and i’ve done a video before that focused specifically on the side effects that we saw with aymavig but in this video i want to give you um you know it’s been out
Longer now it’s been a year since i did that other video so i want to give you a kind of an overview of my thoughts as a pharmacist on the medication at this point so let’s hop right into so first of all the pros and cons what are you looking at well the pros to me are i like the dosing schedule there’s there’s four injectable medications in this class three
Of them are subcutaneous injections that you can do in your home and then there’s another medication in the same class but it’s an infusion you have to go into the doctor’s office once every three months to get it so out of the three medications that you can give by yourself in your home this is one of the two that i really like it’s dosing schedules just one
Injection a month every 30 days so it’s very convenient that way the cons um there’s only one real con that i would say which is if you see a side effect from it it’s usually constipation and it’s usually bad it’s not something that people can normally uh you know it tends to get better as time goes along once they experience constipation with amevic they tend to
Have to get off it try something else so those uh the biggest pros and cons that i see with aim of egg the other thing is the side effect profile by me saying that it can cause severe constipation that’s rare it’s not a common thing so i don’t want you to think that it’s common by any means the other side effect that can happen and it’s across the board it doesn’t
Matter which one of these medications in this class we’re talking about they all can do it and that’s injection site reaction so when you give that injection either in the thigh or around the belly button if somebody else is doing it for you can do an upper shoulder um so injection site reaction just means you get a little redness where you did that injection a
Lot of times as you go along with the injection that will go away not always but by and large it is a very well tolerated drug but if we see constipation it does tend to be pretty severe and people have to stop it the dosing i’ve kind of touched on it’s it’s a good dosing regimen for the medication this in a jovi would be the other medication that i think have
Really good dosing regimens regiments first options something to keep in mind aymavig ambality adjovi they’re all great options but almost all insurance plans are going to require you to go through a step process which means they have oral meds that they’re going to want you to try before your insurance company agrees to pay for one of these newer injectables
Aim a veg at the time of this you know you’re talking six seven hundred bucks a month if you paid cash on the barrel head so the the insurance companies are gonna make you go go through some of those oral medications first usually a two or three month trial on those first but if you get emivig through your insurance um there’s copay cards there is help that way
But most plans when they do get it approved and paid for it’s you know it’s not that bad from a co-pay standpoint so with all this being said what is what is my bottom line on aim of as a pharmacist if there were one of these injectable medications to start somebody on this would this would be a good choice i like aimavig my only knock against it is again the
Constipation thing it’s not common but it does happen if it does you’re probably not going to be able to continue you’re going to have to try something else so so that’s my feedback i do think it’s a good option keep in mind you’re going to have to try some oral medications first most insurance companies just aren’t going to come out right out and pay for this so
If you have any questions post them in the comment get a hold of me whatever make sure to subscribe that that lets me know that i’m putting out the videos that you guys want to see i also let me know in the comments as well so again i hope this video was valuable to you and until the next one i’ll see you later thank you
Transcribed from video
Is Aimovig Right For You? A Pharmacist's Feedback By Curtis Alexander Pharm.D.
