Amanda Godda has been bedridden since August.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when her prescription of acetaminophen with oxycodone was hit by a nationwide supply shortage.<\/p>\n
Since then, the 42-year-old has gone from working tight deadlines and long days at music festivals to only getting up to make a sandwich or wash herself in the sink.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m basically teetering between an eight and nine out of 10 daily,\u201d Godda said over a phone call from her bed in Ottawa, while in fetal position with a pillow wedged between her legs.<\/p>\n
This week, she was finally able to fill her normal prescription to treat the degenerative disc disease that has deteriorated the cushioning in her spine.<\/p>\n
A manufacturing disruption last summer of drugs that contain acetaminophen with oxycodone, which includes those by the brand name Percocet, and acetaminophen with codeine, such as Tylenol 3, obstructed her access for nearly six months.<\/p>\n
Health Canada told The Canadian Press drugs containing oxycodone should generally be available now. However, the federal agency said some shortages continue to be reported and some supplies may still be constrained. Availability is expected to improve throughout December. As for shortages of acetaminophen with codeine, Health Canada said most are resolved.<\/p>\n
Godda said she is hopeful about the return of supply, but is aware that \u201cjust as quickly as it\u2019s come back, it could be taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press spoke to several chronic pain patients who had no forewarning that their pain medications would be out of stock at the pharmacy. They suddenly faced life-altering realities, including withdrawal, the return of debilitating pain, and the arduous pursuit of switching opioid medications.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at some of their experiences.<\/p>\n
AMANDA GODDA, 42<\/b><\/p>\n
Godda started taking acetaminophen with oxycodone in 2021, despite her initial hesitation to start narcotics.<\/p>\n
She had self-managed a herniated disk since 2015, but the pain radiating down her leg and numbing her thigh was finally too much to deal with on her own.<\/p>\n
For several years she returned to a sense of relative normalcy where she could manage social media for an Indigenous music festival, go out for meals with friends and grocery shop.<\/p>\n
But since switching medications to a generic equivalent last summer, she said she\u2019s spent every day in bed with a sharp, searing, unrelenting pain in her low back, right hip and both knees. A food bank drops off groceries, and an Indigenous women\u2019s organization brings hot meals some days.<\/p>\n
Dr. Hance Clarke, an anesthesiologist and medical director of the Pain Research Unit at Toronto General Hospital, said generic medications are equivalent, but not identical.<\/p>\n
Swapping for generic drugs is common, but the way a person metabolizes them is distinct, he said, speaking generally about the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a trial to see, have we hit the right dose if you\u2019re changing that? And I know that\u2019s a bit of a frustrating place to be for sure,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n
Godda said she has broken teeth from clenching her jaw during tremendous bursts of pain just from standing up, or turning over in bed. She described feeling trapped in her own body, at the mercy of supply chains, still uncertain each week if her prescription will be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s daunting as hell, but it I mean, at the end of the day, I can\u2019t ruminate on that because that will create anxiety. And if I\u2019m anxious, my body is tense. And if my body is tense, my pain is heightened.\u201d<\/p>\n
KERRI MACPHERSON, 51 <\/b><\/p>\n
Kerri MacPherson says Tylenol 4 is finally back on her pharmacy shelf after a barren nine months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took the month-worth my benefits paid for, and paid for another month full price in case they were shorted again,\u201d said MacPherson, who lives in Hinton, a town in the foothills of Alberta, northeast of Jasper.<\/p>\n
MacPherson was born with a clubfoot on the right, which has led to osteoarthritis in most of her joints \u2014 knees, hips, spine and the top of her pelvis. Her wrists, elbows and shoulders are damaged from using crutches most of her life. She said standing or even laying down causes the dogged pain in her lower back to burn.<\/p>\n
To manage the pain she takes Tylenol 3 during the day and Tylenol 4, which contains more codeine, at night. She learned in April the latter was unavailable because of the shortage. Her doctor called in codeine tablets as a substitute to take with Tylenol, but then those became unavailable in October.<\/p>\n
MacPherson said she has a high pain tolerance as a result of dealing with these challenges since birth, and has pushed through a lot in order to continue working and qualifying for benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not everyone can do that. I have my days where I can\u2019t take it, and I can\u2019t imagine someone who feels that way every day being told, \u2018Sorry there is no help for you.’\u201d<\/p>\n
SHAWNA DUNN, 46<\/b><\/p>\n
Shawna Dunn said she called every pharmacy in Calgary and Edmonton last month when she learned there was a shortage of the opioid she has been prescribed for chronic back pain. She had been on it for almost a decade, after getting caught in a small avalanche skiing in 2015.<\/p>\n
They did not have it and now she\u2019s out. She said she was told nothing would be available until at least February or March.<\/p>\n
Her family doctor is transitioning her to morphine and tapered her off of the opioid, which she asked not to be specified for safety concerns. The stress and anxiety of it all has led to visits to the emergency department with high blood pressure, she said. She described feeling a lot more sciatic pain, like an electric jolt down her legs, shooting into her hips and backside.<\/p>\n
Clarke, the Toronto-based pain physician, said the nervous system immediately recognizes when there\u2019s a change to an opioid prescription.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone\u2019s been stable on this medication and now they\u2019ve been changed because they have to, and they haven\u2019t hit exactly the number of receptors or the occupancy of what that medication was doing before. Your body will scream at you and say, \u2018What have you done\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunn says it\u2019s hard to move lately, and near impossible to sleep. \u201cI am really scared,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
LAUR KELLY, 42<\/b><\/p>\n
Laur Kelly knows what it\u2019s like to go through withdrawal because of a drug supply shortage.<\/p>\n
Days before Christmas last year, Kelly said their pharmacy in the Greater Toronto Area could not refill their prescription of Tramadol, an opioid impacted by a shortage last December, which they had been taking for almost nine years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was gripped with fear,\u201d said Kelly.<\/p>\n
Mina Tadros, an associate professor at University of Toronto\u2019s pharmacy faculty, said the likelihood of opioid shortages is slightly higher when compared to other classes of drugs because there are only a few manufactures, given the regulatory hurdles of producing controlled substances.<\/p>\n
A pharmacist offered Kelly what they had in stock, which was a smaller dose taken more frequently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went from 300 milligrams in my system at all times to only being able to take 100 milligrams at a time,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Exhaustion, brain fog, and sleepless nights followed. They recount how their life shrunk back to one that revolves around pain, the way it did when they suffered whiplash and a bad concussion in a car accident at 17 years old, which led to a chronic pain disorder called fibromyalgia.<\/p>\n
Since the shortage, Kelly has tried similar drugs, but said nothing has been as effective. By July, they had taken all 18 of their sick days. They adjusted their work schedule to start the day closer to noon because getting out of bed in the morning has been so dreadful and agonizing. They said it feels like their body is burning and it is hard to breathe.<\/p>\n
As a second Christmas nears without their usual prescription, Kelly said they have given up on trying to find out when it will return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings me back to those days where the pain was so encompassing that I did have to drop out of school, and I wasn\u2019t able to work, and I had a very small life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amanda Godda has been bedridden since August. That\u2019s when her prescription of acetaminophen with oxycodone was hit by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[18,135,19,17,462],"class_list":{"0":"post-239584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-medication"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115741765297280305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}