Quetiapine shortage

[Bonkersy]

Is anyone else having difficulties getting hold of Quetiapine? I'm on 600mg usually taken as 5 x 100mg at night and another 100mg in the morning.

Usually I get it as a 2 month supply with all my other meds, but it's proving very difficult to get it. I do have a fortnight supply left, but our local chemists can't supply it, as apparently it's very much in short supply, and none left with their suppliers.

Any ideas?

[Missy_D]

I am on weekly prescriptions which include Quetiapine and as yet have not had a problem getting it. Due to collect tomorrow so will let you know.

[Bonkersy in reply to Missy_D]

I hope that you won't have problems. My scripts are for 2 months supply.

[Missy_D in reply to Bonkersy]

My pharmacy has at least 3 weeks worth in stock and hasn't been told that it will be hard to get. I am still going to discuss with my GP when I see them

[Bonkersy in reply to Missy_D]

What dose are you on Missy_D?

Apparently the problem relates to the 300mg, 150mg, and 100mg tablets, which are now in very short supply, the 50mg & 25mg tabs are still ok, but as we run out of the higher doses we are moving down to the smaller ones. I've been advised to go straight for the 25mg tabs........ I take 600mg per day.......that's a lot of pills!

Based on 24 tablets per day, I will be going in with a prescription for 1,344 tablets.....If all of those of us on high doses are draining the supplies on offer, it won't be long before the low dose tabs are depleted too.

[Missy_D in reply to Bonkersy]

I take 1 X 300 in the evening. I don't know what brand they are though. It could be just certain brands that are in short supply? I don't really know

[_Alex_]

Different pharmacy use different suppliers, so it's possible a different store would have some.

Quote:

Quetiapine... is the mental health drug that shows up most frequently. It was on the list for seven consecutive months, up until July of this year.

vice.com/en_uk/article/9kev...

So yeah, there is a recent history of it being scarce it seems.

Other than phoning up near-ish pharmacy to see if they can provide it, the only other option I know is going back to your doctor to prescribe an alternative, with all the problems involved in that.

[_Alex_]

One thing you can do--and I'm only suggesting this for like cheap drugs where you are paying a prescription charge that covers it anyway--is don't tell the bastards what dose you are really taking. Get a higher dose than you really take. That way, you can stockpile quite a bit of it for something like a shortage, or indeed build up a supply and save yourself some money at some point.

If you sometimes like to take all your meds at once, probably best not to build up a stockpile however.

[Bonkersy in reply to _Alex_]

I've managed to get most of the local supplies from a number of chemists, Boots have a few and one of their 3 suppliers has a small stock which I am having.

[_Alex_ in reply to Bonkersy]

Ok good stuff.