[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to end for our last 15 minutes today with a call-in for people with ADHD who can't get your Adderall. That shortage is going on. It's not been in the news very much. The question is, what is life for you without Adderall? Let other people know. How does it compare to when you're sufficiently medicated? How do you get through work or school or life in general with all the tools you need to be successful and productive?

Let other people in on your world a little bit. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, for people with ADHD or who are dependent on Adderall and can't get it regularly because of the ongoing shortage, which has fallen out of the news but is still going on. Call in and let people know what this is like for you and how you cope. 212-433-WNYC. You get a voice now to talk publicly if you're in that situation. 212-433-9692.

We're doing this because, in part, I personally know somebody who couldn't get their Adderall prescription filled for the last month and just recently got it. Then I started poking around and we found out that, yes, this is a thing. It's not just that one person I know, it's still a thing out there with difficulty getting Adderall prescriptions filled. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

While you wait for your prescription refill to come in, do you find yourself changing your daily routines, which might already be difficult to keep up with due to the nature of the disorder? In order to give yourself more time, let's say, to get tasks done, maybe you've picked up other coping mechanisms besides allowing yourself more time that help you muster up the focus required for necessary functioning? What do you do in this impossible situation? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Maybe you have a child and you are the parent of a child struggling with ADHD. Are you still struggling to get medication for your kid? 212-433-9692. What is managing that as a parent like? By way of background, as your calls are coming in, it's been a year since the FDA announced a nationwide shortage of the stimulant medication commonly prescribed to those with ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

In the past year on this show, we've already dived into the reasons behind the shortage mainly being increased demand during the pandemic and ongoing manufacturing delays at Teva Pharmaceuticals, the producer of the drug. Lawmakers are also taking notice of the situation led, I see, by Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger. Democratic House members led by Spanberger issued a letter last week to the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking answers to the ongoing Adderall shortage.

Listeners, have you been able to fill your prescription recently? If so, how difficult was it to obtain? During those gaps, how do you cope? 212-433-WNYC. You can even throw in, who do you blame? Since we see Congress is dealing with this issue, maybe they have the power to regulate something differently, to force something. 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

[MUSIC – Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on how you cope during the Adderall shortage when you can't get your medication if you're a regular user of Adderall with ADHD; users yourselves, parents of kids in this situation. I see some psychiatrists who are the MDs who prescribe also calling in with some stories. We'll get to some of you as well. We'll start with Rachel in Naples, Florida. You're on WNYC. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel: Hi, Brian. Long-time listener, a first-time caller. I've been on Adderall, prescribed it for upwards of 20 years. When I can't get it, I quite literally have to take time off from work because I have PTO or use that because I can't do my job without it. If I try to, and I have in the past, I end up making mistakes and it's out of character. Management and coworkers are like, "It's not like you," and I don't feel like it's my place really or comfortable to have a conversation, "Well, it wasn't like me because I have ADHD and I didn't have my medication." That's just not really appropriate.

Brian Lehrer: That's a dilemma for you as to whether to disclose that or not?

Rachel: Yes, it is. Some employers, when you apply, you have to check if you have a disability. My current one didn't. Especially for ADHD, since it can be fixed with a medication unlike if someone's in a wheelchair, they can't take a pill to walk, I think it's a little bit different to disclose that.

Brian Lehrer: Rachel, good luck. Thank you very much for calling in. Beverly in Brooklyn, who's a mom, I see, to a kid with ADHD. Beverly, thank you for calling in. Hi.

Beverly: Hi. I was calling because when you started talking it just brought back all of the frustration of going from pharmacy to pharmacy to try and find the prescription. One of the things that happens when you do that is the pharmacists question why you're calling. They think you're drug seeking, and so they can't tell you if they have any in stock and say the doctor has actually put in the prescription. The pharmacy has to tell you that they don't have any available because of the shortage.

Then you have to go back to the doctor and have them call a different pharmacy, send you then to a different pharmacy. You're really stuck in the dark just trying to find places that might have it. There's rumors of pharmacies that have it in chat groups on Facebook. It's ridiculous because it's so not what you're trying to do, but it feels like you're trying to do something wrong.

Brian Lehrer: I didn't know you can't go up to the pharmacy window and say, "Do you have this drug in stock right now?" They won't give you an answer before you go to your doctor?

Beverly: Well, it's because it's controlled.

Brian Lehrer: Controlled substance.

Beverly: Yes, because it's a controlled substance. Obviously, some of them will because they're a neighborhood pharmacy or whatever, but no, if you're trying to call around to see, they won't tell you.

Brian Lehrer: Beverly, thank you very much. Yet another confounding aspect of this. Good luck with you and your kid. Here's a Dr. Hayden in Mount Vernon. You're on WNYC. Hi there. Thank you for calling.

Dr. Hayden: Hi, Brian. It's nice to talk to you. I moved to New York 32 years ago. I've been doing psychiatry ever since, and I really love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Dr. Hayden: Thank you for what you are doing. This is my daily life. I can relate to the two ladies that called in. Essentially, there was a pharmacy robbery where I think there was a death involved in Long Island many years ago. I don't know if it's a state law or a federal law, but it then became impossible for the families to call and find out where the meds are. There were good investigative articles in Bloomberg and I think Reuters that I saved. This really ties into the opioid epidemic too. It's really like a perfect storm because you have several things going wrong all at the same time, one by one.

The opioid manufacturers were faulted, specifically the wholesalers were faulted for not exercising discretion and sending out huge quantities of opioids. All the controlled substances; benzodiazepines, stimulants, and opioids got roped in together and there was some sort of quota that the warehouses would analyze the percentage of controlled substances of each pharmacy and just simply refuse to ship product whenever they reached a certain percentage. There was a kind of a secret quota. The big chains were at an advantage because they had lawyers and people to handle that and get exceptions-

Brian Lehrer: That's all very interesting, but I--

Dr. Hayden: -but it's the small pharmacies that had a hard time.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you to get to the experience of your patients and what you're helping them deal with in this shortage.

Dr. Hayden: It's just that, that they fail tests. Those that were trying to get back into the swing of going to school after COVID and now they go to school and they can't focus. I've been so angry about this, so I finally actually hired a guy for $25 a case to just-- He's a doctor in another country, and he's working for me as a medical assistant. He's here in the States waiting to get into a residency here. I just pay him because I don't have time. At CVS, you may or may not get anybody to pick up the phone.

Brian Lehrer: He's doing for your practice what the other caller was talking about that the patients can't do. You are dialing for availability in stock to the various pharmacies. Is that right?

Dr. Hayden: Yes, and he does a great job. I will just get this horrible sinking feeling when somebody's been functioning well for years, same pharmacy, "Sorry, I can't get the meds," and then when they try to get it at another pharmacy, "Sorry, we're not taking any new Adderall patients," because it messes up their percentage and then they get flagged and then they can't get the drug.

Brian Lehrer: Doctor, thank you for calling. Good luck out there. Julia in Bushwick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julia.

Julia: Hi, Brian. Love your show. Second time calling in. I just want to talk about how the Adderall shortage for the last year, just like you've been talking about, has made disabled patients like me just give up on getting it, and it's really discouraging. My psychiatrist, at a state hospital, requires that I go in person to see her in order to get my prescription refilled every time that I do it. That would be every 30 days, which is completely impossible for me physically. Then I try to get it filled when I finally get that appointment.

As you know, in the New York Health and Hospitals, they don't give you appointments right away for pretty much anything. Once I finally do get in physically, they send it out to a few pharmacies usually because the first one doesn't work. Sometimes they say they'll have it, and I'll go, they won't have it. I'll get a huge runaround on the phone too having trouble just getting the patience of a pharmacist to put in my info. If it's a new place, Capsule, the one that delivers online, doesn't usually have it.

What I've done is I've only picked it up twice in the last year and I just have to ration out tiny little micro doses of it. I've turned in my work a lot less quickly, and it's just depressing you because it's like you're not fully functioning if you're someone who uses that and then you're just like, "I can't really do anything." Anyway, I really hope that it gets resolved because it's--

Just one last thing I didn't tell your screener, I also have severe allergies and I'm wondering if maybe the doctors calling in can speak to how there's a pseudoephedrine shortage at all pharmacies in New York. It's been that way for six months, and so when you go to try to get nasal decongestions, they'll only sell you like 24 instead of 96 or none because they're on hold. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Julia is going to be our last caller. Wow, everybody else who doesn't have ADHD or isn't trying to get Adderall, now you have a better sense of what some of our friends, neighbors, relatives, colleagues are going through. That, of course, was a personal experience call-in. We will come back in due time to the policy aspects of this and the structural reasons for the shortage and what solutions might be, but there you know more about some people's personal experiences in our area.

That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum, with Muskan Nagpal as our intern this term. I'm Brian Lehrer. Stay tuned for Alison.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.