How I Manage My Family’s Healthcare Needs and Save on Prescriptions

GoodRx Health

Adrianne Porcelli has her hands full.

The 44-year-old married mom and business owner lives with an underactive thyroid. She has an 8-year-old with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Plus, she and her husband work full time, running a production company in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Sometimes, the stressors pile up - including prescriptions that can cost hundreds of dollars each month. Here's how Adrianne got to this point, how she manages her family's healthcare needs, and how she saves on prescriptions.

A hypothyroidism diagnosis explained her symptoms

About 10 years ago, when Adrianne was 35, she went to a weight-loss center in hopes of enrolling in a program to drop some pounds. She couldn't figure out why she wasn't losing any weight.

"I was doing all the things that I've done in the past," she says. "I'm working out. I'm eating low calories. I was just really struggling to lose weight."

Before she could start the program, she had to undergo blood tests to make sure she was healthy. It turned out her thyroid hormone (T3 and T4) levels were way off. She was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which means her thyroid gland doesn't make enough thyroid hormone.

That explained why she was having such a hard time losing weight. Adrianne also realized it was why she got tired so easily, and why sometimes, when she was lying in bed at night, her heart started racing.

Adrianne now takes thyroid medication every morning. It works by bringing her low thyroid hormone levels back up to normal.

"I literally have to take it," she says. "If I don't, I'll get all those symptoms back. I'll get the heart racing. I'll get the tiredness."

Since she began taking the medication, Adrianne says she's also been able to drop about 20 lbs.

Every 6 months, she has blood work done. She says she feels healthy, and as long as she's taking her medication, living with an underactive thyroid hardly affects her life.

Juggling health conditions at home

But that's not the only health condition Adrianne is dealing with at home. She also oversees healthcare for her son, Dylan Kamacioglu. Dylan was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 5. At first, he wasn't taking any medication.

Adrianne says he's the type of wiggly kid who wants to get up and move around. That's fine at home, but it caused problems when he had trouble staying in his chair in the classroom. He would behave impulsively and sometimes shout things out.

"When school started for him, the first 2 years were highly stressful," Adrianne recalls. "We got calls from the school every other day." The school would ask her to come pick him up - but she was on set at work. It felt like an impossible situation.

Adrianne Porcelli and her husband, Aytek Kamacioglu, say it was a challenge when their son, Dylan, was first diagnosed with ADHD. (Photo courtesy of Adrianne Porcelli)

She and her husband decided to homeschool him, and they tried it for a semester before enrolling Dylan in a new elementary school.

They also worked with Dylan's pediatrician and decided it was time for Dylan to start taking two daily medications. He now takes guanfacine and Adderall.

"He operates at a 10 at all times," Adrianne says. "It just kind of brings him down a little bit," she says of the guanfacine.

These days, Dylan is thriving at school. He loves studying maps and is a history buff. He dressed up as Winston Churchill for a school project. "He wants to make movies," Adrianne says, and he already has his own YouTube channel.

"It's like night and day," Adrianne says. "School has completely changed for the better for him and for us, and I don't get calls. It's been really great to have that stressor off."

GoodRx Gold gives her significant financial savings

Speaking of stressors: The financial implications of managing two health conditions could easily have turned into a burden for Adrianne's family.

"I'm self-employed, so my [insurance] doesn't really cover prescriptions," she says. A couple years ago, Adrianne's sister-in-law suggested she check out GoodRx to see if she could save on any of her or Dylan's prescriptions. It turned out she could. Adrianne now belongs to GoodRx Gold, a monthly healthcare membership program she uses for her hypothyroidism medication and Dylan's ADHD meds.

The savings are significant. Guanfacine, for example, would otherwise cost Adrianne $840 for a 3-month supply, but instead, she pays $32. In total, Adrianne and her family save $316 every month on prescriptions.

"It's a nice little chunk," she says. Adrianne puts the savings directly into an account for Dylan.

"He can use it when he's older or for college or whatever he needs," she says. "I'm a saver, and I want to teach him the power of, 'Hey, save money. Don't spend it every time you get it.'"

GoodRx Gold is a monthly membership program that provides access to discounted prices on FDA-approved generic medications. Find out more about how it works.

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