Some pharmacies see shortage of crucial medications

CHARLOTTE — Some pharmacies in the area are having problems filling prescriptions of crucial drugs due to shortages, including common medicines for children, such as amoxicillin.

The surge in respiratory infections is driving up demand, which affects the supply.

David’s Pharmacy in northeast Charlotte is a compounding pharmacy, which means it can make drugs here on site.

However, owner David Korany said the raw ingredients for some of the drugs can be hard to find as well.

Compounding pharmacies can get around some shortages because they make prescriptions on site only if it’s not a commercially available prescription.

They are also usually more costly and may not be covered by insurance.

A pharmacist said that doctors could get prescribed different antibiotics that are in stock, such as cephalexin and cefdinir.

Korany said that can make kids more resistant to the drug the next time around.

“Like for example, if we start them with Cephdanir, next time we use amoxicillin, the amoxicillin is not going to work,” Korany said.

Korany said they are also seeing common drugs out of stock, such as Zyrtec and Cetirizine liquid for kids.

Experts said there is something easy parents can do, which is to get flu shots.

In the past few weeks, flu cases, hospitalizations and deaths have nearly doubled, according to ABC News.

Parent Tiarra Graves has three kids and the youngest has the flu.

Graves tried some alternate remedies while waiting for a prescription for Tamiflu, but she said they didn’t work as well as the medicine.

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“Which is kind of scary because it’s that time of the year,” Graves said. “The weather is changing. One day it’s hot. One day it’s cold. A lot of kids are sick. So it’s kind of scary to think that my child has been sick, and I had to wait a couple of days to get the medicine before I could even give it to him.”

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