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.