Nationwide Shortage on Thyroid Medication
December 2021. I am back in New York with my dog. My life for the past six years , which was once located in Florida, was taking a large toll on my family. Ever since I got home there has been nothing but issues trying to get my Levothyroxine 200 mcg vials locally. I have to take my thyroid medication once a day. To live, I need this medication. Not one pharmacy or compound pharmacy have been able to get me my medication for three months. Three months living in fear, hoping and praying someone will finally have my life saving medication.
Levothyroxine (also known as Synthroid), a thyroid medication, is one of the most popular drugs in the country. The price for this medication continues to grow due to its demand, making it even harder than it normally is for cancer patients to purchase the drug. Many cannot get this medication for months upon years at a time.
Something like this is scary on its own, adding in Covid 19, the feeling of not one person caring is heartbreaking. Countless pharmaceutical companies have been called and they've disclosed that due to Covid 19 there's a shortage and there's nothing they can do to help at this time. Many factories were also closed due to Covid. The only way I can absorb my thyroid medications is by Intramuscular injections. I cannot absorb any kind of pills or liquid by mouth due to a malabsorption issue I have with medications. I had this same exact issue when I was in Florida when Covid first began. My insurance company wouldn't even allow me to go to the hospital daily for Thyroid Medication. Two seconds. Two seconds is all it takes to inject the needle into your arm or thigh. On top of all of this, emergency rooms don't carry Thyroid Medication. I have to be admitted for that. I can’t be admitted every time I need Thyroid Medication. To me, that's insanity. All because of a pandemic.
My local endocrinologist, who has known me for 10 years, put me on a high dose of Tirosint 500mg to see if I can absorb anything. Sure enough, I couldn’t. The stress and anxiety was getting real after six weeks of feeling like crap. I was really starting to panic. How do people need life saving medication daily and can't even get it? It baffles me. No one should ever have to feel so drained and worried over something like life saving medication. My local endocrinologist told me to tell my new cancer center what is going on when I see them and I did just that.
Finally after months of having no thyroid medication, several hospital trips and a lifetime's worth of anxiety, I finally have vials from my new cancer center. It took months to get the vials and it makes me sick that every month, for the rest of my life I have to hope and pray I will be able to get my medication so that I can stay alive.
Pharmaceutical companies need to do better! I get that there is a pandemic going on, but people need medication to stay alive. Cancer patients shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they can get their meds one month to the next. It should just be readily available for those that are in need of the drug or drugs regardless of the expensive cost. How can we as people put a stop to this?! Change needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.
🤟🏻 Danielle