It’s not a supply issue.
Apparently, every controlled prescription requires approval from some corporate office, and they haven’t replied to my pharmacist’s requests. I have to follow up every day but I often forget to.
Something about my physician’s DEA number conflicts with Walmart’s database. I’m never told the details. It happens nearly every time.
If I finally get it filled on the 12th, a couple days from now, I’ll have to wait until December 12th to request again. That means, effectively, I get a 30-day supply every ~42 days.
I’m coming to the end of a three-day weekend. I had nothing but free time and a dozen creative TankieTube projects on my mind’s desk that would have brought me joy to work on. However, because I’ve been rationing myself only three capsules per week, I lost all that time to attention traps on the internet. I’m grieving it.
Previous Adderall lore: 2023 October, 2024 August
I wish the DEA a very get defunded under Musk.
Techbro liberalization of stimulant regulations would be a silver lining.
Rant incoming, clearly marked suggested solutions at the bottom under the heading. Skip to that if you don’t care/have enough meds to persevere through.
The DEA policy on stimulant medications is so dogshit that it affected the global supply of stimulant meds.
I’m not in America (thankfully) but there was months of a chain reaction where I live and people were switching to progressively higher stimulant doses, which cleaned out the supply of them by increasing demand rapidly, or they were taking double of the lower doses, which cleaned out that supply even quicker.
And what do you get when you teach ADHDers that the medicine a lot of them rely on to be functional might not be available for months on end? You get stockpiling.
I’m, uhh, not talking personally here because doing that is illegal but I’m sure people know others in their community who have ADHD who they would distribute their stockpile to in order to ensure that their lives don’t fall apart if there’s another med shortage. This even more illegal.
So the DEA, wanting to strictly control highly regulated meds, creates a situations where people are pushed onto higher doses of stimulants unnecessarily which runs the risk of causing stimulant addiction (it’s a slim chance but over a population of millions of people there’s gonna be a few one-in-a-million cases, you know?), causing people to hoard their stimulant meds (which is bad for everyone and it makes people with ADHD a target for crime), and pushes people into the black market of prescription stimulant meds, if not illicit stimulant meds, in order to manage.
DEA policy is regularly an unmitigated disaster.
I haven’t watched closely to see if things have shifted but the longer term impact of their stubbornness to adjust their policy, causing hoarding, is that like with any scarcity-hoarding feedback loop it becomes worse and worse over time.
Suggested Solutions
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If you have a prescribing doctor who is reasonable about things, talk to them about the situation of having a 30 day supply to last you ~40 days and ask if they know of any way to get around this situation because it’s impacting your life and work
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If your doctor isn’t really on the level, you can try complaining about the meds feeling like they are wearing off prematurely on days where you haven’t slept well and when you have an increased workload or increased demands on you, as if halfway through the day you hit the wall. Don’t hypothesise why this might be. You might have to keep at this as a campaign for a few appointments. If you feel as though you risk failing in your responsibilities (job, childcare, education, close relationships etc.) or it legitimately is negatively affecting these things due to this experience with the meds then voice this to your doctor.
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If you tend to work long shifts or split shifts (nurses, chefs, emergency responders etc.) then voice the above concerns even more emphatically.
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If you menstruate, you can also complain that during your period the meds feel like they do nothing and you don’t understand why.
Basically with this strategy you’re angling to get prescribed a supplemental dose of shorter-acting meds. Don’t say this out loud though, you’ll get labelled with drug-seeking behaviours.
This extra supply should help carry you through on those other 10 days where you’d otherwise be without meds.
I’d suggest taking the shorter acting ones on days off of work or where your work and personal demands are reduced so you can (hopefully) build up a small stockpile of longer acting meds over time.
This advice applies to anyone who’s struggling, either with those concerns above legitimately, with concerns about the effects of another shortage (it seems like the US has had a cyclical shortage each year that gets increasingly worse every year and this is actually where accelerationism does have an application), or when you have to deal with a shortfall where your prescriptions do not cover the amount of days until your next fill date.
Good luck and solidarity.
I have an appointment on Wednesday and I’ll definitely mention this grievance.
I’ve heard doctors are more hesitant to prescribe the fast-acting stuff because it’s more “abuseable”. I’m fine with simply getting more of the extended release stuff. I make it work longer throughout the day by taking half of the capsule at 8 AM and the other half at ~10:30 AM.
Cool cool.
The other option that I didn’t mention (We don’t get adderall here so I forget how it comes - it’s lower on my priority list. Take that, America!! 😤) is that with certain extended release meds you can split them so it’s possible to angle for a higher dose extended release stimulant med and then split the capsule and ration that out so you can run up a surplus gradually over time that you can dip into later (the ideal is having a double dose and splitting it in half but it’s possible to do things like reserving ⅓ or ¼ as well.) Gram scales are your friend here.
It gets a bit finicky though, especially working with smaller fractions, which is a large part of why I didn’t mention it. You can dissolve most extended release stimulants in a measured amount of water then dose out the stimulant from the water (e.g. taking 80mls from a capsule that has been dissolved in 100mls) but you need to keep it in the fridge, it’s really not ideal for if you have housemates or kids, and you can’t keep dissolved meds for more than a short period of time.
It’s doable if you have the right meds, the right system, and the motivation but it’s a pain in the ass.
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I genuinely see no good reason why adderall and other ADHD meds shouldn’t be available behind the counter without even having a prescription
If people who don’t “need” them take them sometimes, truly who the fuck cares? There are way worse things they could be doing.
Put them behind the counter so you have to talk to the pharmacist and they can make sure you know what you’re doing, and then just let it be.
