Medication shortages — what are you doing?

[Anonymous]

I’ve called 5 pharmacies looking for my teen’s medication and they are all out due to the National shortages for adhd medication. What are people doing? I’m not sure if I should send him to school next week.

[Anonymous]

What is your teen on? Can you find the med in any dose?

[Anonymous]

We're at Kaiser and DS is on Adderall extended release - so far no shortages in Kaiser pharmacies.

Good luck, OP. I feel your pain.

[Anonymous]

Concerta. I've called six pharmacies from 4 different chains in 3 different towns in MD and they are all on back order. After the first couple, I started asking about lower dosage amounts, and they said they don't have anything.

IF anyone finds it in stock anywhere, please let me know. We'll drive for it.

Can someone that is not on Kaiser insurance get prescription filled at a Kaiser pharmacy?

[Anonymous]

Have you tried hospital pharmacies? I don’t know if Children’s is similar, but the Johns Hopkins Hospital pharmacy can often fill prescriptions when area pharmacies cannot easily or quickly do so.

[Anonymous]

Just called the JHU hospital near us and they said they can't do anything for people that aren't in the hospital. Thank you for the suggestion though!

[Anonymous]

This doesn’t help you now, but in the normal course I take one dose out of every prescription and set it aside in a bottle of back-up meds. Taking out one day doesn’t mess up the refill cycle, but over time I build up a couple of weeks of doses just in case something like this happens.

Every couple of months I switch out the back-ups with the new meds 1-for-1 so the back-ups don’t get stale over time.

[Anonymous]

we recently couldn’t fond generic anywhere but were able to get name brand - $95 v. $7.50, which I can ill afford, but I paid. (It was finals week, OFC.)

DC sometimes doesn’t take meds on weekends or holidays, so, like a PP, we promptly refill and save the difference to build up an emergency stock.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have experience recently w/Modafinil? It’s a new drug for us, wondering how hard it will be to get this Rx filled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we recently couldn’t fond generic anywhere but were able to get name brand - $95 v. $7.50, which I can ill afford, but I paid. (It was finals week, OFC.)

DC sometimes doesn’t take meds on weekends or holidays, so, like a PP, we promptly refill and save the difference to build up an emergency stock.

We do this as well, and like an earlier pp, every once in a while switch out new meds with the emergency stock so that if needed, they aren't "to old."

[Anonymous]

We couldn't get Jornay. Jornay has a pharmacy finder service - I called the company and they found me a pharmacy that can order it. I wonder if other meds have this service as well.

[Anonymous]

I think that if you’re part of the Maryland CVS pharmacy plan, you can use Kaiser pharmacies. Try and find out on the Kaiser mid Atlantic website.

[Anonymous]

In a pinch I've subbed ritalin for my son's concerta. It doesn't last as long and needs the bumper dose, but it's done the job well enough.

[Anonymous]

We haven't been able to find the 20mg XR for 16 yr old DD but as DH was calling around pharmacies last week he found one that had the 25mg in stock. We talked to her dr. who said it would be fine for her to give that a try. She normally takes a 15mg afternoon booster (which hasn't had an in-stock issue) and had been taking that during the day to fill in until we found the XR. Just took the 25mg for the first time today so we'll have to see how that goes.

[Anonymous]

Able to find concerta (brand name) at our local CVS in MoCo. Sometimes we have to wait a day or two for them to get it sent over.