I've been prescribed 30 mg of mixed amphetamine salts instant release 2x a day for years and just last month or the month before I went to call in my refill and the pharmacy called me back and said that they are completely out and they have no idea when they are going to be able to be getting any in. Luckily I don't ever take my full prescription. And my nurse practitioner who prescribes me was already aware of this because we talked about this. I'm prescribed that much but for the most part most days I just take half of one of my pills. So 15 mg. But my bottle is getting dangerously close and there still hasn't been any update on me being able to get my refills. Soon I'm not going to have any and that's why I've kind of also at the same time been tapering my medication and taking it less frequently skipping more days because I don't want to have a meltdown on the day that I totally run out. I'm hoping that just out of luck timing works out and soon I'll be able to get a refill because this is ridiculous.
Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
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Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#32Super old news really. The shortage started affecting me back in October. November and December I had to be really careful. Only just January I was able to get a full prescription. This is like getting news of the pandemic breaking out in 2022; yes it was a huge, huge problem, but it's over now, at least in the US.
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#33Mark my words, this artificially created scarcity will kill people. People suffering from ADHD have a significantly higher incidence of suicide, depression, anxiety, and ironically, substance abuse/addiction disorders. Without consistent access to effective medication based treatment options, people with ADHD will die at a higher rate. That is a tragedy.
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I'm curious about: why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging? For the past few years I'm of the opinion that these substances should be available to those who find them useful (maybe with a doctor check-in required for blood pressure and dosage regulation). While the abuse potential for adderall has a stronger case, something like methylphenidate has a relatively low abuse potenti…
> why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging? Because of their potential for addiction, and also we know that excessive usage of stimulants can have bad physical and psychological impacts. You compared caffeine, well, that's not really comparable to stronger stimulants. Unless someone has committed murder five days into a No-Doze bender that I'm unaware of.
True, I suppose there are the "extreme" users of amphetamines which I haven't considered. Though I wonder if those who take megadoses of adderall are the same people who already are willing to consume methamphetamine or other street stims.
This isn't the same person as the student or office worker who prefers taking low dose methylphenidate to their usual two cups of coffee. If the drug was obtained illegally, many consider this to be misuse or abuse of the drug, and this is the caffeine/ADHD med cultural discrepancy I was pointing out.
So I suppose it is fair to ask: with the availably of black market stimulants, to what extent does restricting ADHD medication availability cut down on stimulant abuse?
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#35Super old news really. The shortage started affecting me back in October. November and December I had to be really careful. Only just January I was able to get a full prescription. This is like getting news of the pandemic breaking out in 2022; yes it was a huge, huge problem, but it's over now, at least in the US.
Yeah, it's becoming news now because people without ADHD are finding out when we run out of our 90-day scripts and can't get our meds.
And it's still not over; instant-release is just now, like this week, showing up in pharmacies here but extended-release - which the FDA nudged everyone toward in October - is still coming up short.
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#36“In recent months, patients have reported problems filling nearly every type of ADHD medication. What’s stranger is that no one seems to know why.” Let me help you. Telemedicine apps are prescribing stimulants like candy and half the country has a sweet tooth. Everyone involved knows what’s going on, and people are getting rich, but the action is a little too hot. Pharma’s nervous about impending regulation so they’r…
Surely you have actual data that shows the prescribing trends you mentioned, right?
https://archive.ph/R9ZBN
> But last week, after reports that the company pressured its clinicians to prescribe medications for A.D.H.D., Cerebral received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, which is investigating possible violations of the Controlled Substances Act, according to a representative for the company. Cerebral has more than 200,000 patients.
> The investigation, which the representative said Cerebral intends to fully cooperate with, comes on the heels of accusations from former employees who said the company prescribed Adderall and Ritalin to treat A.D.H.D. without properly screening patients.
...
> Cerebral is only one of the dozens of mental health start-ups that took off in recent years. At the start of the pandemic, regulators relaxed rules around medical prescription of controlled substances, allowing clinicians to prescribe stimulants and other medications online without the need for an initial in-person evaluation, said Danielle Stutzman, a psychiatric pharmacist and spokeswoman for the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists, a professional organization of pharmacists.
> Those changes made it easier for people with A.D.H.D. to get access to treatments during lockdowns — but also opened the door for companies to prescribe and market drugs without the protocols that can accompany an in-person visit. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cerebral visits typically took only 30 minutes, during which time some clinicians felt pressure to prescribe stimulants.
Cerebral announced in May that they'd pause prescribing ADHD drugs,[1][2] then deleted the announcement by November.[3]
It's not the sole cause, as is the case most systemic problems - Teva Pharmaceuticals had a labor shortage for months that reduced production - but exacerbated a demand growth that had been fast since 2006, grew faster immediately before the pandemic, and then shifted in growth from children to adults under during the pandemic in line with the pandemic-inspired growth of telemedicine prescriptions.[1]
Teva's shortage is passing, but Alvogen, Rhodes Pharmaceuticals and SpecGX all remain short. Methylphenidates (Ritalin and Concerta) are also temporarily short as Adderall users switched off during the shortage.[4]
1: https://www.drugtopics.com/view/adderall-shortage-continues-...
2: https://web.archive.org/web/20220504153953/https://cerebral....
3: https://web.archive.org/web/20221120002710/https://cerebral....
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is discussed at length in the article, the headline and subheadline are simply bait. Adderall is amphetamine. Anyone with or without ADHD (whatever that's even supposed to mean) can improve their concentration with α-methylphenethylamine and similar phenethylamines like methylphenidate ("Ritalin"). Question is if it's a good idea to make large parts of the population addicted to stimulants, especially children.…
This is wrong. It's been shown over and over the people without ADHD get the impression that their concentration and ability to stick to things is improved. Only the impression of it. The reality is that they become more scatterbrained. People with ADHD show a reduction in the inability to concentrate the inability to focus their executive function and reduced aggression and anger and frustration. All things for the…
>people without ADHD
How is that defined for a start? How is it measured?
I can have ADHD if I want amphetamine, the people diagnosing it and prescribing the drugs have obvious incentives to do so. That's the reason for the shortage in the first place. Same as with the earlier opioid epidemic. Should we presume that suddenly there was a massive increase in pain patients - or was it rather an increase in prescriptions?
Re: Mysterious Adderall shortage puts ADHD patients at risk
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging? Because of their potential for addiction, and also we know that excessive usage of stimulants can have bad physical and psychological impacts. You compared caffeine, well, that's not really comparable to stronger stimulants. Unless someone has committed murder five days into a No-Doze bender that I'm unaware of.
True, I suppose there are the "extreme" users of amphetamines which I haven't considered. Though I wonder if those who take megadoses of adderall are the same people who already are willing to consume methamphetamine or other street stims. This isn't the same person as the student or office worker who prefers taking low dose methylphenidate to their usual two cups of coffee. If the drug was obtained illegally, many c…
Methylphenidate is often a fallback for methamphetamine users who can't hook up, but I agree it's ridiculous to expect constraining Ritalin supply will make them magically not addicted to meth.