Discussion My Life Is on the Line Due to Rx Opioid Shortages

[RUC4]

My Life Is on the Line Due to Rx Opioid Shortages

Painnewsnetwork.com
By: Christine Kucera
20 May 2023

Excerpts:

On May 24, I had my regularly scheduled pain management appointment. The prescription for my normal regimen of 10mg oxycodone was sent electronically to my local CVS pharmacy. About an hour later, I received a text from CVS saying they received the prescription from my doctor.

I followed up later through their automated system. That is the moment of shocking revelation when I learned that my prescription was not going to be filled on time, and that it may not be ready until a week after my fill date.

Utterly panicked, heart racing, thinking and speaking a mile a minute, I contacted the pharmacy. They confirmed they were out of 10mg oxycodone tablets.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. A woman who I don’t know replied that I should try contacting other pharmacies.


Really? I can’t do that. Pharmacies won’t tell me, the patient, if they have a supply of a controlled substance. So she looked it up and said it looks like “X” pharmacy has it and that I should have my doctor send the prescription there. Unfortunately, by the time my provider received the message, it was too late.

I made multiple calls to another pharmacy and they were extremely rude. I called my pharmacy again. This time I spoke with a pharmacist that knew me. He was very understanding, as we discussed what to do next.

We came up with a plan. He said to have my doctor send him a prescription for 5mg oxycodone. I immediately emailed my provider about the shortage and asked him to send a new prescription for 5mg, since they were out of 10mg tablets.

It was a very long night and I was extremely anxious waiting for a reply from my provider. As a long-term opioid patient of 30 years with intractable pain, I’ve been through the unimaginable, especially after the CDC published its first opioid guideline. Since 2016, I’ve been force tapered to suboptimal treatment levels, denied pain medication during multiple hospitalizations, and told to take Tylenol.

A surgeon even used prescription fentanyl on me during an interventional procedure after being told it doesn’t work on me – leaving me awake and screaming during the procedure. That’s just to name a few examples. Believe me, there are many more...

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[The Shadow Self]

It's unfortunate that aside from the problem of over-prescribing drugs like Ocycontin and so forth back in the 90's and beyond, led to rather dire ramifications for people who deal with chronic pain management, which of course you are aware of. Even pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens were sued successfully for filling so many prescriptions back then (somewhat unfairly because they weren't writing the prescriptions) so they keep opiates in very short supply in house these days, by and large. It is common, sadly, for people to be waiting on scripts to be filled as the pharmacy has to order them and it can take a week or more to get them. And sadly, I only see the problem getting worse. Good luck to you.