As someone who takes an ADHD medication, I find the idea of a drug shortage terrifying. Life gets so, so much harder when I'm unmedicated.

It's like the difference between walking on a sidewalk and walking in sucking mud, with stuff falling out of your pockets you have to keep going back to find. You build a life that's only possible thanks to your ability to walk on sidewalks. If you suddenly find you can only get around by walking through mud, even with a huge amount of will power, you're going to watch your life fall apart as you just can't keep up the pace of your old life.

Hell, the US shortage is so bad my usual pharmacy told me they wouldn't be honoring my prescription, everyone I called refused to answer if they could and would usually just hang up on me, and my Dr refused to help find someone

Kinda don't blame the UK if it's anything like that there

Maybe the UK should join the US in importing all their pharmaceuticals from China: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-10/fda-allows-more-cancer-drug-imports-from-china-amid-shortage

This is the actual solution, and I'm not sure why I'm getting so many downvotes from it. Clearly, purely capitalist markets aren't enough to sustain a decent pharmaceuticals industry.

I just started Adderal XR (generic) a couple months ago. I’ve been lucky im finding it but my doctor (and myself) would rather be on vyvanse.

Luckily there’s a new generic for Vyvanse. Unfortunately nobody has it in stock yet and now that it exists, insurance companies don’t want to pay for brand (which is also in short supply)

Wait, what? Do I have to worry about this becoming a real issue in my country? I'm on elvanse.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Doctors in England have been told not to prescribe ADHD drugs to new patients because of a national shortage, as charities warn that the supply problems are devastating for people living with the condition.

A national patient safety alert from the Department of Health and Social Care said the shortages were down to a combination of manufacturing issues and increased global demand, and could last until the end of the year.

ADHD, which stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is described by the NHS as a condition that can make it hard to concentrate and may mean people act on impulse.

“Other ADHD products remain available but cannot meet excessive increases in demand,” the DHSC alert states.

Dr Andrew Hill, a senior visiting research fellow in the department of pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, said the problem lay in how medicines were sourced.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are aware of supply issues affecting medicines used for the management of ADHD due to increased global demand, and we have issued communications to the NHS to advise healthcare professionals on management of patients during this time.

The original article contains 751 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

What's the reason for the shortage?