Large and Random (?) Drug Shortages! There is apparently an FDA site you can search:

Been hearing about this a little bit for a few weeks, has previously only heard of it related to ADHD and Pain meds. Apparently it's more than that?

When you search for yours, check the specifics. I checked one of mine and it says discontinued but it's at a lower dose and seems to only be from one pharmaceutical company. I haven't heard anything about it being discontinued as a whole and I think I would have...

I checked another that's on that list and I get nothing back of it being in a shortage. So, you know, it's the FDA. They're only semi-helpful...

The extended ADHD med shortage is going great

A friend on Discord is doing home renovation and this spoke to me so much that I asked his permission to post it.

It seems pretty common for people with mental health challenges to beat themselves up for not being able to function properly. Like meds wouldn't actually help, you're just a poor workman, bad at being a functioning human, a failure.

If you're out there metaphorically sanding drywall by hand, just remember: that guy was full of shit. There may be tools out there that can help you. Looking for a better tool isn't a waste of time, and needing to upgrade your tools doesn't make you a failure.

Having the right tool fucking rocks.

Hey Important thing for folks with ADHD in the USA!

If you have experienced issues getting your prescribed medications due to the ongoing shortage please consider taking a minute to respond to this federal inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission

The comment period ends in 53 days as of 2/22/24

Please feel free to share even if this doesn’t apply to you so other people can see.

Excuse me a moment while I YELL INTO THE FUCKING VOID.

Vyvanse is having shortage issues now. Had to call my pharmacy because I hadn’t gotten a notification on that one and wanted to see if there was an issue. Evidently yes, the issue is that it is out of stock and they don’t know when they’ll get it again.

I hate everything about how we handle ADHD meds in this stupid fucking country. Because now I have to either hope they have it in soon or call around to the other five pharmacies in town to see if they have it, and if they do, then I have to call my doctor to get an entirely new prescription sent, and THEN I have to call my original pharmacy back to have them cancel the old prescription in their system so the new pharmacy can fill it.

Why? Because it’s a schedule 2 drug and that means they can’t just transfer the fucking prescription.

Why? Because the War on Drugs has rotted our collective societal consciousness.

Why? Because there’s not a single fucking moral panic this godforsaken country won’t embrace with open arms, I swear to god.

So naturally that means we had to put the fucking drug cops in charge of medication quotas. And as we all know: ACAB.

“There’s so many new prescriptions!!! Zomg!!! Who knows if they’re legitimate because they were prescribed via telehealth!!!”

Oh wow so this disorder that makes it extremely hard to sustain and regulate attention and thus makes it difficult to do routine things like setting up doctor’s appointments (oftentimes multiple appointments) and then remembering them and getting to them on time… that somehow got diagnosed way more when we took away some of those obstacles? Madness! Witchcraft! Sorcery!

Before I was diagnosed/medicated there were literally days where I couldn’t even get out of bed. I would be laying there, staring at the ceiling, yelling at myself in my head to get up, get up, get up, you need to go to work, get. up. goddammit… to no avail.

Vyvanse has literally given me my fucking brain back. I can look at a task and think, “hmm, I should do that,” and then I just fucking do it. Do you know how many weeks’ worth of laundry I used to have just laying around in baskets because forcing myself to put it away was literally impossible? Do you know how fucking painful it is to look at a task that you have failed to complete, over and over, a simple task, a stupid task, you should just be able to do this, why can’t you just fucking do this…

I think people who have never experienced this can’t truly understand how horrific it feels to have to fight your brain on every. single. thing. Every single task is a calculation: can I do that now, if I don’t do that now will I be able to do that later, wait I already have to do task X and once I do that there’s no way I’ll have the mental energy to force myself to do task Y too. It’s like trying to get your work done on a computer with 80% of its resources being bogged down by bloatware. Can you get some things done? Sure, probably a few. But it’s going to take you three times as long and if you’re not careful the whole system will freeze and you’ll get absolutely nothing accomplished, and oh yeah, it’ll be wildly fucking frustrating the entire goddamn time.

It just absolutely infuriates me that we’re so fucking scared of the potential for “drug abuse” that we fuck over everyone, as if drug abuse is somehow the biggest moral failing in the world. Maybe if we addressed some of the things that lead to it, there would be less of it! Maybe just criminalizing everything is stupid, counterproductive, does not help in any measurable way, and oftentimes just makes everything worse!

And not for nothing, but if not for the truly incredible insurance I am lucky to have through work, getting diagnosed would have cost me $1200. My husband and I are doing well enough that we probably could’ve managed that in a couple installments, but for a large percentage of people, that prices them right out. And I live in a very low cost of living area. I can’t imagine what it costs elsewhere. How many of those “abusing” these meds just actually fucking need them but can’t afford to get them prescribed? Because even after the initial diagnosis, my first scrip cost $230 thanks to a deductible, and then $40/month after that. $40 isn’t awful, but there are plenty of people who do not have an extra $40 per month. (And my copay is on the lower end. I’ve seen people with insurance saying they’ve had to pay $200+ every month.) And then you have to have regular meds check ups, every 2 months or so. So add another $200 for each of those without insurance.

I’m extremely fortunate that the place I work not only offers great insurance but also pays 75% of the premium so that it’s actually affordable, and all of my outpatient mental health visits are covered at 100%. But I shouldn’t fucking have to be glad I won the employer lottery. I shouldn’t have to worry that I won’t be able to get the medicine that makes me functional just because we continue to exist in a society still fucked up by Calvinism to this day.

None of us should have to an endure a fucking asinine, callous, broken system that, whenever any of the myriad problems with it are brought up, has the audacity to go, “oh, don’t blame us, blame those other people who are also suffering!”

Fuck all the way off. We made all of this shit up. None of it is immutable. We just don’t give a fuck that people are hurting, and it shows.

i love my psychiatrist like 80% of the time but today is not one of those times bc my normal pharmacy is out of Vyvanse generic (ofc they are everyone is) so I called around and found a place that had exactly enough left in my dosage to do my prescription on Monday. I called my doc to get my prescription moved - bc even though it's legalized for pharmacists to transfer controlled medications one time only for refill purposes my pharmacy has a policy that they won't transfer them at all (fuck that) but anyway - I left a voicemail at the doctor's and the nurse practitioner called me back like an hour later to get the details and said she'd forward it up (this is at like 1pm on Monday) anyway yesterday morning I stopped by the pharmacy and they hadn't received my script yet and I thought "hey I'll trust my doc to get it done she hasn't left me hanging before" (we can all see how that worked out for me) but they still had the generic in my dosage so I said "great I'll check back tomorrow" and I stop by this afternoon. give them my birthday, no dice. double check under name, nothing. other pharmacy tech I talked to yesterday hears me and comes over and goes "you're looking for the vyvanse right" and then sadly shakes her head when I say yes indeed I am and ask if they still happen to have any. so lads, it looks like I'm in for a Bad Time

I'm just curious how many adults are dealing with this in the United States. I've personally called multiple pharmacies without luck.

Feel free to add things you've found that are helpful if you've been without your meds for a while.

ADHD is so... demoralizing.

I had a really interesting idea and I went to write it in my phone and I read a notification and poof it was gone.

Like sure it happens to everyone from time to time but for me its constant. 5 times a day I will put 2 and 2 together and realize how what I thought was the solution was actually 22 and this new way of looking at it all was 4... then it just fades away.

I can write my notes to myself and maybe I will understand them and the context later but I don't have time to write out a full thought with all the trimmings. It is just a quick note and I have to risk it making sense later ... or not.

I mourn for myself and how much work I just waste. Not even doing things wrong like setting dishes in the wrong spot or something, but just realizing new and better ways to think and classify the world around me that just crumble to dust.

Im on a list to get on the wait list to see my ADHD doctor. Perhaps we can talk about other medications that won't spike my blood pressure and are actually in stock... but its been 8 months since I last got my prescription and I still have at least 6 weeks if the moment I hit send I get an appointment.

I just miss being functional. I miss being able to hold a thought in my head well enough to write a thought to disk. I just want to take my crutch pills and have the relief of being able to think idle thoughts and know that I can remember them long enough to write them down, and remember what the notes were about.

why does the healthcare systemhave to work like this i am going to SCREAM

Our pharmacy is out of Adderall again. Three other pharmacies in the same chain are in stock, but since it's a controlled substance you can't just have them transfer it-- the doctor has to call in a whole new prescription!! Well, the doctor's office said they have to put in a request to their nurse line and the turnaround is 3 business days. The pharmacy said they had about 100 left. Istg if they run out before the Rx is even fucking called in...🙃🤬💀

I called 11 pharmacies today. Not a single one had the meds I need. 2 had 10 Concerta, but I can't get a partial fill and then more later I don't think. Ugh.

I've seen a lot of really great guides floating around the Internet aimed at helping people with ADHD navigate the current (manufactured) medication shortage, and these are super important. However, I don't think we are talking about THIS enough: ADHD medications aren't simply interchangeable for most ADHD'ers.

Changing medications, sometimes multiple times, to avoid shortages can have serious impacts on our functioning. One medication may just work better for us than another, it may help different parts of our function, or it may have very different side effects. On top of that, changing medications is a change in routine and a physical change for your body that can be dysregulating and time-intensive.

(And that's saying nothing about the different administrative barriers for accessing different medications or working with healthcare providers who could range from helpful to outright hostile).

If I get neglectful, if I get absent, if I get a… if I do stupid ass things, if I do anything… I'm sorry. There is a medication shortage is making me a terrible person. If you want my attention, come to me. If you feel like I don't care about you enough, come to me. If you feel like you want me to be there and to be a person in your life, COME TO ME. This is a bad situation for a lot of people with executive dysfunction. If I do not read your social cues, if I make you comfortable—TELL ME FORTHRIGHT. Many with people who have ADHD have trauma associated with being the "obnoxious" one or the "creepy" one, so when we are without the aids of our meds, we may retreat into ourselves. Please be patient, kind, and support to those right now with ADHD. Most of us cannot find our medication at all. Please don't let us ruin our lives any further by damaging our relationships with others.

Me the Night before: Scripting out a long bullet point list of things that have become hard/impossible to do ever since my meds weren't refilled.

Me Day of starting me speech: It's been really hard the last few weeks without me med-

My Psychiatrist: In what ways have you been struggling?

Me:

Me: uhhhhh it's hard to remember things sometimes?

AKA the most basic problem one can have with ADHD and not the list of more unique issues i've been having.

Okay who else is experiencing the effects of the national shortage on ADHD medication because right off the bat, my insurance straight up won't cover 90 day supply and we all know that we only get refills after meeting with our doctors, which means triple the copay for 1/3rd of the meds. This is fucked.

Before, 90 days would've cost me like $30 on meds and another $45 for the appointment. Now, it'll be $10 for meds and $100+ on appts I don't need. In this? Damn? Economy? I'm sick.

so, Fun Fact* time

There's a shortage of Vyvanse in Australia right now, has been since late last year, and it's not expected to clear until the end of this month (hopefully). The DEA does not care.

"Can't you just use another med?"

No.

Why not?

Fast-acting stimulants come in two varieties: amphetamine-type (Adderall, Vyvanse, dex) and methylphenidate-type (Ritalin, Concerta, Focalin). (Note: Strattera is an SNRI, not a stimulant.) Generally speaking, patients will respond well to one or the other, not both. Anecdata: I tried Ritalin for two days, on the minimum strength, and both the full and half pill gave me heart palpitations. Not fun.

There are three commercially available amphetamine-type stimulants: Adderall (mixed amphetamine salts), Vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine, an inactive prodrug that the body converts to dexamphetamine upon absorption), and pure dextroamphetamine. Only two of these, Vyvanse and generic dex, are available in Australia. We don't have access to Adderall, and given its age, it would be a miracle if the TGA approved it.

There is one (1) company that holds the patent for Vyvanse in Australia. They've been at manufacturing capacity for something like two and a half years now, and have applied for an increase in the DEA-regulated cap. The DEA has denied an increase because "well, nobody else is at capacity, so it's not a problem."

Except, of course, this is the only company that can supply Australia (and New Zealand), so whatever doses could've been made and shipped globally couldn't have actually been shipped here.

Idk, I just need to scream about this.

I've been on dex for a month now because I got incredibly lucky with finding Vyvanse and my performance at work has been on a steep decline because it's just not as effective as Vyvanse is for me. It took me a week to figure out how the dosing should work, because dex is shorter-acting and only comes in 5mg pills, so I didn't realize that the dosage I got from the converter I used is actually what I need to take every time, not across a day, like I initially thought. I'm also on a lower dose (I'm pretty sure) because I don't want to deal with splitting pills, which isn't helping.

I literally need this medication to function. I've been researching how dangerous it is to take in pregnancy because my husband has outright stated that if I have to go off my meds for nine months or more, our marriage will fail. It's not an option for me to just go without, because my life will fall apart.

ADHD for me isn't some cutesy "teehee I forget things and it's hard to pay attention," it's "I literally forget to (go to the bathroom | eat | drink water | perform other bodily care tasks) because I'm hyperfocused on something else."

My ADHD is severe.

I tick every single one of the inattentive symptoms and about half of the hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Probably more, because my version of "sitting still" includes stimming and I have multiple coping mechanisms for dealing with the inevitable boredom and understimulation of daily life. I've got multiple comorbidities caused directly by my ADHD. It's a goddamn miracle I managed to go so long undiagnosed and unmedicated, and I don't want to go back to where I was then.

I miss actually being able to focus.

There's a disabled wheelchair-using MP here (Jordon Steele-John) who likened going without medication to him not using his wheelchair for months. It's that serious.

* funness of fact is subject to readers opinion

It's been 3 weeks since my diabetic medication was stopped and I am now fully back to restricting and obsessing over my weight.

Thanks NHS, I was losing weight safely and healthily until you decided to fuck me.