Heads up to any 3cs, or those on pancreatic enzymes. Apparently, there is a pancreatic enzyme shortage. Canada was hit with the same shortage a year ago, apparently. The meds that I take in order to process food (Viokace 20/78/78) is not being made at the moment. Luckily, I have at least a 3 month supply on hand, (and a bottle stashed in every backpack, purse, or house that I frequent) and spent 3 hrs this morning calling every pharmacy in the state. Unfortunately, a box of 300 (the max they keep on hand) lasts me 3 weeks. Not sure what my GI guy will switch me to. He’s pretty adamant about this particular one.
Funny, I could deal with rationing insulin, but the thought of going back to a no protein or fat diet sends me in to a tizzy. No peanut butter, pulled pork, or yogurt? The horror!
Anyway, not to cause panic, but, yeah, probably best to hoard for a bit until this gets resolved.
Good luck, unicorns! Sorry, @eilatan , had to use your phrase!
I feel for you, even though I am not 3c. I think a lot of these shortages are the result of “just in time’ inventory practices combined with the pandemic. I know that we should be passed pandemic issues, but when stocks of raw materials are depleted it takes too long to rebuild when everyone in the supply chain has been doing that “just in time” thing.
We see this with various medicine shortages, baby formulas, and other necessities. I am glad that you have some backup.
I am supposed to take 4 Creon with every meal and don’t–but I should!–so I have quite a lot on hand. And I am going to get back on the Creon bus because I’m also on Ozempic now which is causing my bowels to be more disturbed than usual, shall we say.
I have very strong opinions about just in time manufacturing, it’s mainly a tax dodge, bc if you don’t keep inventory on hand until it’s needed, you don’t have to pay taxes on it (in the US). And it’s incredibly fragile, as we all found out during the Great TP Crisis of March 2020.
To clarify for those not in the US. The raw components of inventory on hand but not sold cannot be deducted from income; you can only deduct the cost of components going into a produce when it is actually sold or disposed of.
It shouldn’t affect the behavior of companies which produce products with a limited life time because inventory has to be shifted within the lifetime. So most drugs it doesn’t matter (despite the fact that insulin lasts for ever the manufacturers still put a short date on it, etc.)