I am currently recovering, very slowly, from a period of withdrawal. Not from illegal substances but from unobtainable prescription meds! We’ve all seen the Post Brexit warnings about this but I can assure you after discussions with several independent and high street pharmacists ALL medication is difficult to get. I spent 5 days last week totally and immediately without my high dose Preganalin (an epilepsy drug also used to control nerve pain); and can honestly say I can not ever remember feeling as ill, I literally had to stop myself swallowing packets of diazapin, please ignore spelling I’m still really fuzzy.
Symptoms included Gastric flu, an acute depression attack, anxiety, uncontrollable shakes, flushes and chills and total inability to function.
Very fortunately for me on day 5, Friday, my friend after chasing around the City managed to get some tablets on Friday pm.
Within 4 Hours, the nausea, and the worst of the shakes had abated and Sat morning I felt Alive; I mean cognitively Alive, the anxiety, depression and all associated head fuck had stopped completely; I emotionally was as stable as I ever am. Yet physically I am still very weak and having to retrain my stomach to accept food.
This is Already people, Think what is going to come over the next few weeks! Please take this as a warning, check with your GPs, pharmacists, etc, and if you discover what we did here in Leicester, and what friends in Essex did – Please let me know.
*We are passing this and similar tails onto Jon Ashworth (Shadow Health Minister & Leicester S MP) This Must be addressed Now.
I seriously do not know if I could go through that again and am working on ideas to support me not to (which I will disclose another day) BUT we regular consumers of Pharmaceutical Products Need to Protect ourselves now.
We will be the earliest casualties of this Severe Lack of Medication in UK, but it will affect Everyone – ALL Drugs are Disappearing across the UK, if the local Chemists are to be believed and I ask you Why would they Lie?
*We will also being communicating with the local NHS Trusts about this .
Take Care All and keep me posted please on this issue Nationwide
jaynelinney 
Reblogged this on Fear and Loathing in Great Britain.
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Reblogged this on Bob Mouncer's blog and commented:
From Jayne Linney
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Ranitidine! I tell you last week my pharmacy couldn’t fill that basic, but important to me, item on my monthly repeat prescription of 19 different meds.
The effects of suddenly not having any of them are going to render me housebound, crashing into a paralysing depression from no meds, uncontrolled pain, neuropathic pain and no sleep. I am worried sick about it, been relatively stable and controlled with what I take, so it’s not changed in a very long time.
Not only would being made housebound have serious negative effects on me, it would mean my ASD son would be made housebound too, as I’m his escort to and from school.
It’s all a huge nightmare.
A50 needs to be revoked, grow some balls Parliament and do what is in the best interests of the whole country, including sick & disabled, expats,… Everyone!
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Hi sorry to read it and Empathy; would you be prepared to give me your rough location ?
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Yes sorry, I’m on the south east coast, east sussex
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Reblogged this on Declaration Of Opinion.
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Hi
I’m not a commenting, social media, blogging type person but I felt I had to share. I’m also on pregabalin, due to hospital wanting to experiment on me I had to cut down from 200mg twice a day to 150mg twice a day. I used to be on 600 my a day but I weaned myself down to 400 last year, mostly due to a muddle up of me forgetting to order them so had to stretch doses out. The withdrawal off pregabalin is HORRIBLE so bad in fact that if I could I wouldn’t take them as if the withdrawal is that evil I wonder what they’re doing to me (I take them for neuropathic pain). I’m also on buprenorphine patches, again recently cut by a quarter. I so hate being a guinea pig!
Ok, so the relevance…these AND at least two of my other drugs are made in the EU, as was my contraceptive jab, my former contraceptive jab now as when ordered in July it never turned up. Not that the pharmacies or doctors surgeries want to help here, there’s no communication so if a med isn’t there the first we know is us chasing up, after we’ve left it a few days after the latest it should have been delivered, which then means we’re short, which then means we need to chase up with the GP surgery (not convenient when one has a panic attack just thinking about ringing the surgery!) When I did try to sort an alternative contraception the attitude was “leave it and we’ll see what happens as/ when/ if your monthly starts again”. Wow. If like me you can’t get to the surgery it’s another 24 hours for a replacement- even sending the same med but in a different size seems to need a bloody inquest. And then the surgery could be a real arse insisting on seeing / speaking to a GP to get an alternative which again, when you can’t get out just throws another issue into the works.
We were promised there’d be no problems, but put “medicine shortages Brexit” into a search engine and marvel… There are shortages here and there in the normal course of things but Brexit almost certainly will make things worse. There are plenty crying “project fear” etc but I’d rather believe the likes of the BMJ, Royal Pharmaceutical Society etc.
I’d recommend when you’ve put a script in to the pharmacy to check at the time or if they go in electronically leave it a day and phone, make sure you’ll get something on time,
If the drug isn’t in ask how long they’ve been short, tell them you need to know if it’ll be in as you need to be able to go back to the GP with correct information to be able to arrange an alternative as the withdrawal is horrific/ its keeping you sane/ alive/ pain free (delete as applicable). I’ve already read that there are fears of GPs time being taken with this stuff but hey, we need to be able to function!
So, if everything turns out ok I’d be happy to say I was wrong but until we know we’ll be ok we need to keep track of our scripts and not be scared to say what our needs are.
Take care everyone xxx
Ipswich, Suffolk
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Thanks and goof luck with future scripts x
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Hi Jayne
Got all my meds I ordered but driver delivering them was aware of hold ups and shortages as he’s on the receiving end when things finally show up. Next lot will be ordered as soon as I’m allowed so to give time in case things are short. Not risking unintended withdrawal symptoms!
Hope everyone has been able to source meds ok
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I am on a long term thyroid medication which helps to keep me alive and functioning. This is therefore a replacement hormone, not a medication to alleviate painful symptoms. Many of us in the thyroid community are not properly helped by the standard (for that read cheap) medication, Thyroxine (known as T4). It simply does not work properly for us, (for various reasons I wont go into here) and so for years members of the thyroid community have done our own research and either use Natural Dessicated Thyroid which is almost impossible to obtain via the NHS or Liothyronine (known as T3).
Many people on these meds are forced to buy them from abroad due to the problems of obtaining them from the NHS. NDT was previously available as it was the standard med given before T4 was produced synthetically. Liothyronine has been available on the NHS for many years as an alternative, to T4, or as a supplement to T4, but the price shot up some 5 or so years ago as it was artificially increased by the pharmaceutical company and so the CCGs began to cut back patients’ use of it, even though the suffering remained the same.
I was allowed to take T3 only (ie not mixed with T4) about 7 years ago and so far due to a sympathetic GP, (and a CCG who currently permit it(, I have been allowed to continue on it. If I was not, then I fear for my health. Due to Brexit fears over medicine shortages, added to the fact that CCGs don’t want the cost of T3, I have been really worried about my T3 being cut. I have been able to build up a small backlog so that I will have a small safety net if the worst happens. In addition I have bought in some stocks from abroad where it is reasonably cheap compared with our own NHS T3 (which is comparatively exorbitant) from a trusted supplier. Not ideal, and I am lucky to have the spare cash to afford this.
To make matters worse, the most common brand of T3 bought by the NHS (there are 3 that I know of in the UK and this is the cheapest) is not effective for me so I could have difficulty getting the brand that works for me. So far I have been able to get my T3 but I noticed that there was a delay last time with my chemist, and I have just put in for a new prescription this week so we will see what happens this time….
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Reblogged this on hilary77blog and commented:
Anyone having problems obtaining their medications, please report it on Jaynes blog
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