Ms Contin No Longer Available At Pharmacies

I need to find a pharmacy near my house in Dunedin Florida that carries ms contin 60 milligrams that I can pay for with my United Healthcare Community Plan Mplus.

Is MS Contin no longer available at pharmacies in Pinellas County? How can I find a pharm availability of ms contin 60 milligrams in Pinellas County, Florida?

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REPORT

Hello, Karen! How are you? Sorry about the problem that you're having.

There are a couple of problems going on that have contributed to the current shortage and I'll explain them for you…

The first thing that happened is mainly exclusive to the east coast and mostly in Florida… pharmacies have a set limit of how much they can order and keep in stock each month of any controlled substance, once they run out for the month, they are not allowed to order more in, until the next month. However, many were found to be ignoring this and ordering more in, whenever they ran out. This is now being enforced by the government and since pharmacies must stay within their ordering limits, many of them run out early, because their current list of customers for controlled substances exceeds the amount they can order. This has actually caused many pharmacies to start restricting who they will fill them for, so most now require that the customer and doctor be located within a certain radius of their store.

The next issue is also of relevance to all of the east coast. A major pharmaceutical supplier was shut down this fall, because it was found suspicious that they moved far larger amounts of controlled substances than other, similarly sized, suppliers. This has made it hard for pharmacies to restock their supply, until a new distributor takes over.

And there is one more problem at play that affects the entire U.S. and that is a shortage. One occurs around this time almost every year. To try to keep better track of the supply to prevent theft and diversion, all manufacturers of controlled substances are given a certain allotted amount that they can produce each year and once they reach that amount, they cannot manufacture and distribute new product, until the new year, when they receive their new allotment number. To be honest, this has created a shortage for so many years in a row that I can't remember the last time there wasn't one. The projected prescription demand that the government comes up with each year just never seems to actually meet the real demand.

I have two suggestions I can make that may or may not help..

The first is to try smaller, mom & pop type pharmacies in your area. They tend to have fewer customers, so they may still have it in stock.

The second would be to check what your pharmacy has in stock, if they'll tell you, then talk to your doctor to see if they'll prescribe it as an alternative, until the situation is rectified.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

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My Dr. wrote a new rx for ms contin. No pharmacy in my area has it and the pharmacy stated that they don't expect to get any before the end of December. Does anyone know why there's a shortage?

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Re: Louise (# 2)

My sister lives in Tenn and has no trouble getting it. If you are on disability or retired, medicare ins will not cover either oxycontin or ms contin. I used to take oxycontin ,but when I went on disability, I had to change to generic. Definitely not as good as oxycontin.

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