It’s so beautiful how my dependence on buprenorphine to live a functional life makes me totally reliant on the whims of some shit head pharmacist working for some evil corporation. Going without buprenorphine for more than a couple days induces torture comparable to the worst flu you’ve ever had in addition to a massive chance of relapse onto street heroin (read: fentanyl and xylazine).

But very month I have to hope they have my medication in stock. Not every three months, drug war policies don’t allow schedule 3 prescriptions that large. Gotta prevent the fucking junkies from diverting buprenorphine at absolutely all costs, I guess.

If they don’t have it, then I’m just shit out of luck because they seem to have no idea when any particular medication will be in stock. Apparently it’s just random, they have what they have regardless of the fact that they always know an entire month in advance exactly when I need refills.

When they don’t have it in stock, you’d think I’d just be able to call around and ask a bunch of other pharmacies if they have it, right? But no I can’t because it’s apparently universal policy not to reveal which controlled substances are in stock to anyone. So before I even know which pharmacy has it, I need to do the full prescription transfer process to each pharmacy one by one on a trial by error basis just to learn if there is even the slightest chance of it being filled on time.

I swear to god, I’ve been on this medication for years and I have to switch pharmacies every six months or so because this whole process literally happens at all of them eventually. When I kicked full agonist opioids, I was glad that I’d never have to constantly worry about getting my next dose. I never thought that anxiety would remain with prescription buprenorphine.

My last pharmacy was Ralphs, and on the day I went to pick up my last refill there, they outright told me my medication was on back order and that they had no idea when, if ever, it would be back in stock. It’s now about five months later, and my new pharmacy Rite Aid is telling me they are out of stock despite the fact I just brought them a new prescription with three refills last month.

This fucking blows. Death to America for the war on drugs among so many other things.

  • emericaEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I’ve never had an issue with a pharmacy not knowing if/when they will get more, so I can’t really speak to that. But, I experienced similar things with the same medicine. Best thing I did was find a locally owned pharmacy and spoke to the owner/head pharmacist about my concerns. They almost always have at least some in stock for me every month and get the rest in a couple days. There have been a couple times they didn’t but had it the next day.

    This one is a bit harder but it has made things soooo much better for me. I started slowly tapering down just a bit until I took a half pill less each day than I’m prescribed. Gave me a bit of breathing room on refills since I would always have some left over in case the pharmacy screwed me. Just keep getting your refills when you’re supposed to and keep any leftovers and you’ll have a big stockpile soon.

    Doesn’t really solve the issues with pharmacies but at least let’s you work around them.

    Good luck!

    • cosecantphi [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I agree, I’d probably be better off doing that, but I’m limited in that I need to find pharmacies that accept GoodRx. It’s my understanding most small business pharmacies don’t, especially for controlled meds. GoodRx coupons take the price down from something insane like $300 per 30 day supply to around $60. That’s the only way I can sustainably afford them since I have no health insurance right now.

      But even when I did have health insurance, I wasn’t able to get it covered because no in network doctors believed in long term buprenorphine maintenance and refused to write more than two prescriptions. Thankfully I found a clinic that has volunteer doctors writing prescriptions for free, but I still had to pay the pharmacy for the fill.

      Good idea in taking less than the prescribed dosage, though. I’ve been meaning to do that to build a buffer, but always back out when it’s time to take my dose. I’ll need to put effort into doing that whenever I get my refill.

      • emericaEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Ahh ok, I remember the pain of having to deal with GoodRX. Depending on how much you take a day dropping 4mg down over a week or two shouldn’t make you feel bad. I was taking 3 8mg tablets a day and over three or four years have dropped to less than 1mg a day total and haven’t had anything worse than some watery eyes and a little tiredness. Just go as slow as you need too. It helped to break them up into smaller amounts more frequently. Instead of 8mg 3 times I did 4mg 6 times, then slowly broke a little off of one of the half’s each day until I was taking 4mg 5 times.

        I truly feel your pain having to deal with shitty doctors, pharmacists and lack of insurance. About ten years ago I called every dependence doctor I could find until I found someone willing to write generic bupe prescriptions instead of the name brand bupe/naloxone shit. I think I got lucky by finding a doctor who had a pill addiction in his youth and hates insurance companies more than most. If you happen to be in Central Texas I’ll PM you his info.

        Last thing I can think of, we have a couple “no insurance” pharmacies here. They say by not having to pay people to deal with insurance companies they can charge less. They were consistently the lowest price I found and both accepted GoodRX. I live in a big city so that might not be an option, but thought I’d mention it.

        It took me a few years to find a stable doctor and pharmacy and I know it’s hell having to deal with the stress until you do. Even with all that it’s still worth it once you find someone that works for you, just gotta keep going until it happens.

        EDIT: maybe an online pharmacy? Never tried one, just an idea.