Why Are There No Dex4 Tablets Available in Canada?

Tips, Tech & Gear Treatment
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Dex4 tablets have been unavailable for months here in Canada, the only suppliers listed in Amazon are priced at 7-10 times the usual cost. The Dex4 site has been hanging with a cryptic message lacking an explanation. Local pharmacies cannot explain their empty shelves.

Yes, I know all about alternative treatments, I am 50+ years T1D and grew up with bags of lifesavers in my pocket.

I am more curious why I cannot find an explanation for the cut off supply of dextrose tablets. Posted my efforts here

Any theories?

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What cost are you seeing on Amazon? This is what I see. I have never bought them, so I don’t know what the normal cost is.

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Note that amazon.ca is a completely different entity than amazon.com

I am seeing CA$70 for same item

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Other brands (Lift, Reli-on) are less, but all of them come up as not deliverable to my address. It’s like there is a Great Wall of Glucose at the border.

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Oh my, just looked to see if Amazon.ca had anything like our smarties (know your smarties are something entirely different) or sweetarts, as both are basically dextrose. Saw something listed as Ce De Giant Smarties, but they seemed to be the same ingredients as sweetarts. And seemed to be expensive: maybe a dextrose shortage?

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@cogdog we had a shortage of glucose tablets here in Texas but that seems to have passed. There was a dextrose shortage that was a combination of factors - supply chain, crop declines, the pandemic and more.

I checked the Amazon prices for Kari Lite syrup without HFCS which is glucose (dextrose) syrup. A single bottle is $16.95 Canadian while 2 bottles are $15.00 USD. I don’t know the exchange rate but that seems very high.

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Okay, that’s what I wanted to know.

How about I buy them and send them to you?

You cover the U.S. Amazon cost of the tablets and the shipping, and that’s it. If I buy enough bottles for you, the cost of the shipping per bottle is relatively small.

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That would be… Amazing. Thanks for being my Dex4 middle fence! I’m thinking like 10. Will message you directly, I can do paypal $USD.

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I see some incredible irony. People in the US will buy prescription drugs from Canada because they are cheaper. And @cogdog is going to be buying a non-prescription medication (for us) from the US because it is cheaper. :rofl:

Oh and Eric, thank you for all that you do.

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Yes, the irony is hilarious! :joy:

BTW, can someone tell me the weight of a bottle of those things (tablets plus bottle)? I am trying to calculate the shipping cost.

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Not the same brand, but a bottle of 50 4g tablets unopened weighs 155g or 5.5 oz.

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Cool, thanks @CarlosLuis! I will get a shipping cost from the mail center tomorrow.

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I wonder if there is an ingredient that is now banned in Canada that is holding up sale/production of Dex4 ?

An ingredient that never used to be an issue, like titanium dioxide.

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@cogdog,
For 10 bottles, this is what it would cost to get them to you.

For the tabs, the Amazon cost including tax is $121.90

For shipping, I got an estimate of $70 using UPS. (Shipping is about $45 cheaper with UPS than it is with U.S. postal service.)

So your total cost would be about $192 for 10 bottles.

Let me know if you want to proceed and I will give you my PayPal and we can get it going.

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I saw on a reddit thread, someone claiming to be in a Canadian admin role posted that Dex 4 is in not currently available in Canada because the bottles were printed in all English and Canada requires both English and French.

Not sure if it’s legit, but sounds plausible on this side of the border.

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I read that thread, and it’s a clear sign of the way people can assert anything.

Here’s a flickr photo I took April 19, 2023, of a bottle of Dex4 tablets I purchased in Canada:

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Not the best focus, and my high school French would disappoint Monsieur Rivkin, but it sure reads comme le français on the label, – if you want the full proof, I still have the (empty) bottle and can post a photo

I really am curious to know the why. Seems like there’s some kind of job where people report these things :wink:

Thanks for the followups.

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In US, another is TruePlus, at lower cost. $23 US for 150 tablets

Or $36 US for 5 bottles, 50 tabs each.

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I have also purchased the ones in foil paks, and the tubes for convenience. But get bottles to replenish tubes, at lower costs.

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I appreciate some brands may use different ingredients, but glucose tabs don’t seem to be one of them except for flavorings. The price ($11.95) is 2x+ (nearly 3x) the cost of tabs from Walmart and Target (store branded) in store or online and, depending on the number ordered, shipping is free. I note @cogdog (post originator) is in Canada and there may be a differential there I don’t understand, though I thought Canada’s drugs were cheaper for the most part.

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It’s not uncommon on Amazon for resellers to price items a wee bit in the stratosphere. When I lived in the US and had no coverage for test strips, I had to sort through a lot of results to find the best bargain.

The price is not the point of my question, though. Something happened here in Canada, where Dex4 (and other brands) vanished months ago from pharmacies and Walmart shelves. No one at the stores can provide an answer.

This message bearing the word “temporary” has been on the dex4 web site (Canadian) for at least 6 months:

We are temporarily experiencing inventory shortages.

We know how much you count on Dex4. We also want you to know that you, our customers, are our #1 priority and we are working diligently to get products back on your pharmacy shelf as soon as we can.

We apologize for this inconvenience. Should you have questions, please contact customer service at 1-800-363-2381 Monday- Friday between 8:30AM-5:00PM ET.

The fact that amongst the offerings I can find on Amazon.ca they are not only overpriced by sometimes 7x, if you even try to add to a cart, it will show up as non-deliverable (please note, American friends, what you see on Amazon.com is vastly different from outside the border).

Again, the issue is not the cost, but the lack of any explanation why such a basic product is not available here. I guess I need to make some phone calls.

Also;

Yes, you would be blown away how reasonably priced a vial of insulin can be, but glucose tablets are not a prescription item, they are over the counter stuff.

I have no problem using alternative solutions for low sugar (candy, honey, regular syrup), this just is mystery to my curious mind.

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Well, I just called the customer service line from the Dex4,ca site (apparently from the phone answering they are a subsidiary of AMG Medical.

The human I spoke to claimed that they were just getting back into production after they lost a supply of a “key ingredient”-- when I later asked, they said it was “dextrose” and that I would see it on store shelves here “within a month”.

That’s all fine and thanks @Eric for the offer to ship from the US, I might wait it out a month.

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