#adhd drug shortage

[parttimepunner]

Excellent video. If I had it in me to advocate for better access to ADHD medication in front of Congress this is the video that I’d either use in its entirety or at least summarize.

[guitarlove6437]

Why are adhd meds so hard to get right now?

Hi I’m a pharmacy tech. I fill prescriptions, release them to patients, answer the phone, and write instructions for prescriptions. Right now in the US just about everywhere is an adhd medication shortage. I can’t exactly give a “why is this still going on?” answer because I wish I knew. I can answer why it’s so hard to get. Oh and I have adhd too. But I don’t take any medication for it cause epileptic too.

Issue #1 - Manufacture Backorder

For one reason or another, the company (in this case multiple companies at this point) cannot make enough medication and/or distribute enough. What this means on the pharmacy end is if the individual store is lucky the store can get a stock bottle or two per order. Depending on what the pharmacy’s suppliers are, they might only be able to get those orders done up to three times a week. I say this cause one supplier for my store is only delivered M/W/F.

Issue #2 - Small Stock Bottles

These are typically (especially since we’re talking about controlled medications here) bottles patients don’t see. These are the bottles filled with medication X we then dispense for prescription Y. Sometimes medications are kept in stock bottles, like liquid antibiotics or birth control pills. But with rare exceptions, all controlled medicines are dispensed into amber vials.

What do I mean by small stock bottles then? The amount of actual pills per bottle. I would say a good majority of medications come in standard bottle sizes (60, 90, 100, 500, 1,000). I’ve seen some other high control bottles on the higher end of bottle size. Not adhd meds. The largest bottle size I’ve seen is 100.

Let’s say our hypothetical store has scored two bottles of methylphenidate 20 mg of 100 pills each. Before this, there were 10 pills leftover from previous prescriptions. So there’s a total of 220 pills.

If there only six prescriptions done of 30 pills each, the inventory is down to just 10 pills again. That’s nothing for pharmacy standards. There’s a automated robot standard in the chain I work in for common drugs (controlled and non controlled) and I easily see 100+ of prescriptions checked from that alone.

Issue #3 - Can’t Directly Transfer

I’m sorry and this sucks. I wish I could just call a different pharmacy and ask if they can take an adhd medicine prescription. It’s the law. If it’s a high control, we cannot do quite a few things. One is we can’t transfer from Store A to Store B. Yes, even if it’s the same chain.

Issue # 4 - Long Waitlist

In every pharmacy there is a queue called Fill on Arrival. These are prescriptions we can’t fill until we get enough of a supply to fill. This especially comes into play with manufacturer back orders. The reason why pharmacies are saying they don’t have enough even when they do? Because they have a long list of patients who have been waiting for their prescription to be filled. I have even been advised to tell people we don’t have medication that’s on back order because we have such a long waitlist. And my store isn’t even particularly busy in my area!

I want to be absolutely clear before I end here: every single one of you reading this frustrated you can’t get your regular adhd med, yeah I agree it does suck ass! I wish I could fill your prescription! I promise you, look at the tales from the pharmacy subreddit, you’ll see other worker’s frustration about all of this. The shortage has gone on way too fucking long. But it is not individual pharmacies’ fault. It’s the pharmaceutical companies, the suppliers, and the government since these are controlled medication.

Thanks for reading!

[runedscope]

No it didn't bad time magazine the patent expired exactly when it was expected and the manufacturers for the generic where approved as expected. This has nothing to do with "stopgap measures" this shit was going to happen this way the day people knew when vyvanse patent would expire. Stupid piece of shit magazine

[dreadfulratgoblin]

I was off my ADHD meds for four days. In this time I asked one of my co-workers if they wanted to rock paper scissors for something, blurted out to a kid that they were dyslexic (they did not know this), and had a breakdown at three am over these things and also all the other stupid shit I got up to which is too voluminous to mention. This was all while trying as hard as I could.

I now have meds, because I'm extremely lucky and have a good pharmacist. But there's a shortage right now and it is hurting people with ADHD. Some have been without for months.

... Yeah.

Idk what the point of this post is.

Be nice to your ADHD friends they really are trying.

[r0-boat]

Whb!Beel with ADHD from a person with ADHD:

Cw: ADHD drug being used in a not so ADHD way...

Beelzebub both feels like an over exaggeration of ADHD and a personal call out so I'm making this out of fun.

Whb Beelzebub not actually knowing or remembering that he has ADHD amd He's at a party where one of the devils provide Adderall to make them all go crazy...

And there he is the king of gluttony sitting politely hyperfocused and calm on the couch why the other demons enjoy their drugs in confusion on why it's not working...

Or The rare moments when he's trying to actually get work done He chugs and energy drink thinking that will work only for him to be past the fuck out on the couch.

Beelzebub randomly getting a hyper fixation on kinds of drugs and drug use and recreational drugs. Bael being forced to listen to all his random facts from human world sharks. Wondering if he could somehow channel this energy into actual paperwork.

Beel walking into a room and turning right back around.

Beel hitting his knees on everything in sight where he has bruises everywhere.

Beel turning a conversation faster than you can say 'I have ADHD'

Beel 'The Man of many talents' because over a thousand years he has dabbled in quite a lot of hyper fixations.

Beel spending his money on something completely fucking useless because it was cool.

Beel spending literally days on TikTok.

Beelzebub demon of gluttony Lord of the flies really likes cinnamon roll from hello Kitty (personal headcanon)

[bigmammallama5]

Speaking of a previous fandom post I just shared: I have Not stepped away from fandom this fall, I’m just dealing with some health stuff and I’ve been pretty short on the energy I usually have. I’m doing okay and should be all the way better soon! But energy has been going to real job and pottery (which is also real gig job with taxable $ involved but pottery is the art form I have consistently fallen back on for comfort the past decade). I still have so much interest in unfinished fics and art I hope to return to in the new year. And I’m still hoping to noodle out some drawpiles with @sango-blep as my body and energy level allow. But yeah, still here just working to keep my nose above the water.

[chronic-cane]

Why are a bunch of cops (the DEA) allowed to decide what medications are needed for the healthcare of the American public? Why do they get to decide how much a drug should be produced? Why are they able to continue dropping the quota for opioids despite the constant plea from both patients and doctors to stop?

Why are a bunch of cops in charge of who's able to get their meds?

[piraticoctopus]

The extended ADHD med shortage is going great

[parf-fan]

Fuck it, I'm using this platform. This is both important and severely urgent. It's technically not even totally unrelated to the Faire: loads of Faire actors have adhd, being that adhd-thinking gives one a natural advantage in improv.

Tldr, which I'm putting at the top: you have a chance to help people with adhd whose lives have been upended as a result of lack of access to their medication.

For those who don't know, there has been a shortage of Adderall and Adderall equivalents for at least a year-and-a-half now. This is basically because stimulant medication is a controlled substance, so the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) imposes a limit on the amount that can be legally manufactured in the u.s. within the span of a year. The percentage of people with adhd has not increased; however, between the pandemic upending everybody's routines and coping mechanisms, increased visibility and understanding of adhd, and gradual erosion of stereotypes and stigma of the same, more of us are FINALLY actually getting diagnosed. More diagnoses means more treatment plans, which, in turn, means more prescription of Adderall and Adderall equivalents, and other stimulant medications, to the point that prescription amounts surpass the yearly cap.

This has, to put it bluntly, been absolute hell for the millions of people of all ages who literally need this medication to function. Our careers, grades, relationships, and more have been gutted, and so many of us have been reduced to a shadow of ourselves, exhausted and scrambling, never making headway. Individuals have suffered, families have suffered, and society has suffered.

The good news: the DEA is finally taking public comments on the matter of this low limitation. The bad news: comments must be submitted by 11:59pm EST on Monday December 4th – literally today.

For the sake of all Faire actors whose natural A-to-C thinking patterns have granted you laughter and joy, as well as tons of your fellow PARF enjoyers, PLEASE go tell the DEA to raise the cap.

Here's the link to the proposed aggregate production quota document.

Here's the link to the search results for "Docket No. DEA–1228P" on regulations-dot-gov.

Here's a link directly to the comment form.

For more information on how stimulant medication helps people with adhd, I recommend this ten-minute video from the esteemed How To ADHD youtube channel.

For more information on adhd in general, here is a playlist of definitions and explanations of common adhd terms.

A playlist of more expanded videos about what adhd is.

A playlist of fundamentals of how to exist with adhd.

And a final note: there are more steps to submitting a comment than just the comment itself, so be sure to leave a little extra time.

[sydmarch]

spent months like I need prescription for my mental health give me prescription please please & now that I have it I'm like hm. do I want to have to take meds, actually

[socialjusticefail]

DEA is preventing this drugmaker from making ADHD meds, but then other parts of the government is reaching out and requesting this drugmaker to make more ADHD meds. Read to the article to understand the why.

[halluciniwaynia]

crazy how it took less than two years for people to see the DEA as “that government agency nobody gives a shit about” to “im actively going to firebomb their offices”

[wickedhawtwexler]

y'all why do i even pay for insurance when they refuse to cover anything lmao

[willtheweirdrat]

Is there really a fucking Adderral shortage. Should we really just go to meth and 14 cups of coffee instead

[twinknote]

pharmacist: generic vyvanse out of stock and name brand is $300

me, popping brain out of skull and gently setting it into a jar filled with water: we had a good run, kid

[curemoonliite]

just saw a take somewhere saying that ppl who have to take oxy for chronic pain are uniquely singled out and accused of being druggies and that "no one treats ppl on adderall like this" and like. who wants to tell them?