Important Drug Shortage Notice

[Henry]

I was notified by Merk Medco of the following drug shortage, because it is one of the drugs I use.  I haven't checked with Rick yet to see if he has any in stock.

"Important drug shortage notice

There is currently a shortage of sublingual nitroglycerin tablets in the marketplace. Medco's inventories of the sublingual tablets (brand and generic) are limited and may be exhausted by February 28. After that date, we expect that neither the brand Nitrostat® nor the generic sublingual tablets will be available through Medco By Mail until at least April 2009. Your retail pharmacy may still have product available.

The only other alternative sublingual product available is the Nitrolingual®, spray 0.4 mg, which is a brand-name product and therefore carries the associated co-payment/coinsurance."

My prescription comes in a quantity of 100, which I would say is way more than I would use in quite some time - I believe our Rescue Squad has this drug also in case someone is having a heart attack.  Have no idea how this happened or if there is a shortage locally.  Of course widespread news of this could quickly create a greater shortage, I suspect.

[Kathleen]

It's not just the nytro where there is a shortage. My sister who takes neuroton(sp?), a pain medication for her chronic back pain, was notified by her pharmacy that she would have to wait a week for her prescription to be filled. This may not be a shortage, but a defensive solution on the part of the pharmacies to not keep a stock of narcotics due to the drug robberies. But I too have had to wait 2-3 days for my asthma medicine to be filled. Let's hope this isn't a ploy by the pharmaceutical companies to raise the prices on these medications.