Medicine shortages

[Woody girl]

Is anyone on a prescribed aspirin dose of 75mg of soluble aspirin daily?
You will probably be aware ther is a shortage, prices (if you can get it) are ridiculous, compared to things like ibuprofen and paracetamol.
Recently, I went to buy my usual pack of 100 tablets, and the chemist refused to sell them to me, and told me he was saving what stock he had for prescription only.
Well, it is on my list of prescribed medicine, but not on repeat, so that meant I needed to ring my doctor and ask for it to be put on repeat.
Fetching it a few days later, I was given only 28 tablets, less than a full months worth.
Each item on a prescription costs almost £10. I'm lucky enough, being a pensioner to get my stuff free, but it still costs the NHS £9.50 per item. So I felt that I needed to do something else to cost the failing NHS less, ok so in the long run a tenner goes nowhere, but every little helps, and add up .. hopefully!
So my solution was this.
I bought a pill splitter for less than a fiver.
I then bought a pack of 32×300mg soluble aspirin for about £4.80 still incredibly expensive, but cheaper than the £8.99 quoted for 28 pills over the counter..if I'd been allowed to buy them , or the £9 50 prescription price.
So, now i have 32 pills, but only need 1/4 of the dosage of each pill. Hence the pill cutter. I can now cut each pill into quarters and have 128 doses at the correct dosage.
(Hope I've done my maths right, I'm calculexic)
Hope this might be usefull info for anyone having problems obtaining this medication.
I shall be buying a couple of extra packs,and a back up pill cutter just in case this doesn't resolve, and if it does, I can pass the cutter on to someone else who needs this medication to help save a bit of cash, in this day and age of soaring costs.
I also take a blood pressure drug, which has recently had the dosage halved due to side effects. So I have lots of 8mg tablets which I can cut in half, and now last twice as long per prescription, than taking the4mg packet. Ie, 2 months, instead of 1 month.
It's a small investment, for a maximum gain.

 

[FIU]

What is causing these shortages? I feel terrible that you even have to deal with this.

 

[Falstaff]

Happens every year, part of big pharma's dirty pressure tricks when negotiating annual prices. This year Trump has personally made it worse. Under pressure Starmer agreed to pay more for leading drugs, therefore there is less to pay (Pharmacy's) for basic meds, probably made by none-US companies. Pharmacies are on record as saying they are making a loss on these and cannot afford large stocks.

You might find more stock and better prices at the big supermarkets and Superdrug. I found they are also less restrictive about the quantity you can buy per person.
e.g. Superdrug: Almus Aspirin Tablets 300mg 32s 79p (don't know their stock level though).

 

[Woody girl]

Happens every year, part of big pharma's dirty pressure tricks when negotiating annual prices. This year Trump has personally made it worse. Under pressure Starmer agreed to pay more for leading drugs, therefore there is less to pay (Pharmacy's) for basic meds, probably made by none-US companies. Pharmacies are on record as saying they are making a loss on these and cannot afford large stocks.

You might find more stock and better prices at the big supermarkets and Superdrug. I found they are also less restrictive about the quantity you can buy per person.
e.g. Superdrug: Almus Aspirin Tablets 300mg 32s 79p (don't know their stock level though).

For some strange reason, the 300mg are fine and cheap. It's the heart maintenance dose of dispersable 75 mg that is the problem.
You'd think, if they had enough stuff to make the cheaper higher dose, then the heart maintainance dose of 75 mg would be easy...no? It's gone up in price 1,000% from 18p to over £3.90, acvording to google, but that's not true here. My local chemist wants £8.99 a pack of 28!!!!! What inflation percentage is that??????? He's only loosing 60p on the NHS price... sceptic? Me? Nah, cors not!
But then, I'm just a normal sensible person. What would I know?
I do know, I'm gonna do my best not to get ripped off more than absolutely nessasary.
Hence the pill cutter and pack of 32 dispersable asperin that still cost more than average( £3.80) as falstaff has illustrated with the super drug price of 79p!
(Is that disperseable, or normal tho?)

 

[Pattree]

I am fighting my GP to stay on Warfarin. It’s cheap, there are many European manufacturers as well as UK and many supply chains.

Apixoban is more expensive (even when you include the more frequent warfarin blood tests) and less effective for relatively low risk people like me.

But
UK has agreed to buy more US pharmaceuticals. Blood thinners are an easy, very widespread application that could absorb a big chunk of UK commitment to purchase American drugs.

Hang on - I saw a report recently.

Got it:-

Reuters. 17/06/26

LONDON - Global pharmaceutical companies, facing pushback from European capitals on drug pricing, are turning to a playbook that brought them recent success in Britain: threats of pulling investment and expansion plans to pressure policymakers.

The latest target has been Germany, which is debating legislation to tighten spending on medicines. The industry notched a win in Britain when the government agreed to increase spending on medicines as part of a broader deal to avoid Washington-imposed tariffs.

 

[Woody girl]

All part of the plan to get rid of the sick people that live too long. Now they can truthfully say it costs too much to keep us alive.
NB, it's mostly the older generation (pensioners) that need this type of meds, so, deny them the meds, they kark it, then thet don't have to pay the pensions and can levy the death taxes. Whoop de woo! Our money in their bank, win win.
Ooh I'm such a cynical conspiracy theorist arnt I?

Ps, thank you trump, making life so much easier for those of us ageing gracefully...or at least trying to.

 

[HorseGuy]

I have about 20 spare packets of aspirin at home that I don't need anymore. I bought them about two years ago to help with a minor circulation issue which is no longer a problem. You can have them all for free if you want.

 

[Woody girl]

I have about 20 spare packets of aspirin at home that I don't need anymore. I bought them about two years ago to help with a minor circulation issue which is no longer a problem. You can have them all for free if you want.

Hi, I tried to send you a reply to your pm, did you not receive it? I'm still trying to get used to this new phone. Had this problem with someone else too.. I told you I was useless with tech!
Get in touch with Toddy, she has my address., I m happy for her to pass it on. Thank you so much. I'd be very grateful.
Don't know why messages are not getting through. The layout is different on this phone, and I'm obviously not doing something right. Hey ho.

 

[HorseGuy]

No worries

I thought you might have missed my message yesterday when there was no reply. I'll post them to you tomorrow or at the weekend.

 

[GeraldTheBonsai]

There is a national shortage of quite a few drugs at the moment. Was having this conversation with my local pharmacist, as they had totally run out of paracetamol and were having problems getting supplies.
Small independent pharmacies are particularly finding it difficult as they dont have the buying power of the likes of Boots or Tesco.
The whole business model for how pharmacies have to work is rubbish. They claim back the cost against a central NHS cost for the drug. However this list is slow to update. If a price for a drug rises rapidly, as had happened recently for one medicine, because the manufacturer had a production problem, the pharmacy is out of pocket until the list catches up - then they can claim the difference. But it hammers their cash flow.

 

[MartinK9]

They ran out of insulin last month.....

 

[FIU]

President Trump now runs the UK? Companies now have citizenship?

 

[FIU]

They ran out of insulin last month.....

That is absolutely shocking.

 

[Falstaff]

The prices I picked out were for ordinary aspirin because I didn't know what dispersable was.
So dispersable means you have to dissolve it in water then drink it?

Larger pills and a pill cutter is probably a smart call.
I see some Amazon online offers at decent prices but how would you know the quality? Could be talcum powder!

I see Chemists4U on line advertising 100x75mg at £8.49 i.e 85p per tablet,
but 32 x 300mg at £1.89.
so in round numbers 6p each, use a pill cutter divide by 4 =1.5p 1/4 tablet.
Even if they crumble rather than cut 4 ways it's still cheaper. What you also need is one of those "drug dealer" scales! and make your own 75mg wraps ...

I see a decent price online from Weldricks, but they don't say in advance how much the delivery cost is. Don't know about them, but expensive delivery charge is a common on-line trick for what appears to be a good price.

 

[Woody girl]

That is absolutely shocking.

My friend j is on hrt, and having problems with that too.
At least asprin is a readily available otc drug, so can be hunted down even without a prescription. Things like insulin and hrt are a different matter. Glad I got extra blood pressure meds everytime I left hospital over last winter.i have 2 reserve packs which gives me a couple of months grace should that become a problem.
I also keep four ( two of each) extra asthma meds secreted away in case of problems. I am very good at "loosing" my inhalers. Being a rather forgetful sort of person at times...yeah!

 

[slaine_23]

So dispersable means you have to dissolve it in water then drink it

Means you can dissolve it rather than have to. So in theory could one dissolve the tablet and dose that way.
There used to be a thing here called Mrs Cullens Powder, was very popular

 

[slaine_23]

Which would have been ideal for splitting.
That it was packaged like a speed wrap is neither here nor there

 

[Woody girl]

Means you can dissolve it rather than have to. So in theory could one dissolve the tablet and dose that way.
There used to be a thing here called Mrs Cullens Powder, was very popular

Not realy, if you dissolve 300mg into a glass of water, you cannot be sure of only drinking a 1/4 dose exactly. Hence the pill splitter for the 300mg tablets.
Importantly
75mg is a specific maintainance dose to keep the blood from clotting. Most people don't actually dissolve it, just bung it back and swallow like a normal pill.

It's dangerous to take too much asperin and can cause kidney problems and ulcers, so 75mg is the optimal dose to minimise organ damage, but still keep the blood thinned enough.
I have blood tests twice a year to keep a check on liver and kidney function, and test my bloods for clotting factors.