Due to drug shortages, Chicago women are seeking treatment for menopause

CHICAGO – For many women, choosing the right medication is half the battle in the fight against menopause.

Nowadays it happens more and more often that once the doctor has figured out which one is best for him, he can no longer find it in the pharmacy.

In a Fox 32 special report, Sylvia Perez takes a look at what to do when you're running low on medication.

“So I'm just starting to call individual pharmacies to see who has it in stock, because they can see who has it in stock,” said a Chicago woman who wished to remain anonymous.

“At one point they told me Carol Stream. I’m fine.” I don’t own a car. I wanted to rent a car and they said, “Yeah, we just don’t have one anymore.”

The woman was desperate to refill a hormone patch that her doctor had recently prescribed to treat menopausal symptoms. Symptoms that she had struggled with for years and that finally gave her relief.

“It was like night and day after I got it. The brain fog was gone. I felt like myself again and no more hot flashes and I was able to sleep better too,” she said.

She had only been taking the hormone patch for a few months when her pharmacy suddenly informed her in mid-August that it would not be available until October. The order was backordered and she only had a week of medication left.

“The pharmacist would tell me that your doctor should just prescribe something else for me in the meantime to tide you over until the product is in stock,” the woman said.

Dr. Mary Farhi, an ob-gyn and certified menopause practitioner at Rush University Medical Center, said you can't just switch these types of medications.

“Once someone finds something that works for them, we want to try to stick with it,” Farhi said. “Just like birth control pills, some people can tolerate certain pills and some patients can’t.”

It's important to remember that a doctor's first drug of choice for a patient will be at the top of the list for more reasons than one.

“It’s usually more effective. Has a better side effect profile, so is more tolerable or cost-effective for patients,” said Michael Ganio, senior director of pharmacy practice and quality at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). ).

“So it may be cheaper for a patient if we are missing a drug and have to switch to a second line of treatment. We are sacrificing something in one of these categories,” Ganio added.

ASHP has been tracking drug shortages in the U.S. since 2001 and reported that last year they reached a record high of over 300 shortages.

“We see that drug shortages continue to increase or remain the same. We've seen some decline, but it seems like every time we make up some ground on shortages, the next quarter comes and we have more shortages than before,” Ganio said.

Ganio said there are currently 300 individual drug shortages. The five main categories include: central nervous system drugs, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, basal fluids and electrolytes, and hormonal agents, which include menopausal drugs.

“Oftentimes we don't get a reason for shortages, and for some of these hormone drugs, the manufacturers don't have to give us or the FDA a reason why there's a shortage,” Ganio said.

“The FDA released a report in 2019 and found that the problem behind many of these bottlenecks is investment in quality at the manufacturer level,” he said.
Ganio added that drug shortages have become the status quo as doctors have found a way to live with it, and that not much will change until lawmakers take action.

“I literally had to call 11 pharmacies before I found a Mariano's that was on the very edge of town and took an hour bus ride to get there and pick it up,” the unidentified woman said.

And then she had to take a $30 Uber ride to get home after picking up medication that was fully covered by her insurance.

“If it were a men's drug like Viagra, I assume there would never be a problem of running out of supplies,” the woman said.

“You should be able to get it at your local pharmacy or by mail order. I had the time and resources for it. What about women who don't have the time and resources because of their circumstances? How are they? Will they get along without medication?”

You should always consult your pharmacist and insurance company before changing medications.