Apologies if this has been posted about already, I couldn't find any posts on it. For context, my partner just started T and I'm still waiting to get my prescription. We live in Scotland. Yesterday we tried to get his testogel, and all the pharmacies in the area had sold out. Eventually we found a pharmacy that had some... about an hour's drive away, but they could only fulfil half the prescription. Searching online I couldn't find any info, but I did notice a lot of UK online sellers saying they were also out of stock, due to a "manufacturing issue."
Does anyone know about this? Is it a common occurrence? Would it be better to switch? I have heard there have been supply issues with the other brands in the past, but being new at this we are not sure how to navigate these sorts of problems or how much we should/shouldn't worry about it. Any advice anyone could offer would be appreciated, but I also wanted to post about it in case any UK folks want to check their local pharmacies too.
I'm in the UK (England) and on testogel. I've found its a specialist product and usually takes a few days (two or three) for a pharmacist to stock it after you give them your prescription. They don't have it sitting on the shelf like with more common medications. I assume bcos it's not a common condition to have low T and needing to take hormones.
I figured that might be the case, I was actually considering going to my pharmacy a few days before I get my own prescription to ask them to get it in, but all the pharmacies here are saying they don't know when they'll get it in and there's a "manufacturing issue." Just hope this is a temporary thing.
I sometimes have difficulty getting my estradiol filled. My solution (because I have a large refill) is to go through the process of getting my next prescription a month before I need it. This takes care of doctors vacations and delays ordering it from the warehouse. It's simple for me because I count out a months supply and store in in a separate bottle. When my working bottle gets down to the last few pills, it's time to take action.
I'm here in the US, and I use Androgel. Is it availible in the UK? (I'm thinking its similar.) Due to my prescription, I get three months worth at a time. Maybe you can ask your endo to do something similar, get a few months' supply at a time.
Good luck!
Ryuichi
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When I was on gel, the only pharmacy I could find that could fill a full 3 month supply at once was connected to the LGBT center that wrote my prescription. Everyone else needed 3-5 days to get anything in stock.
I don't know about prescription branding there or how specific your prescription is, but are there alternative brands you could use? Could you take your prescription to a compounding pharmacy (if those exist there)? That would side step the manufacturer issue if you could. May be worth asking your doctor about.
Yeah, it took them 2-3 weeks last time to get it in stock, but I submit the prescriptions with a month's supply left on my shelf in advance because they always do this where I am, they hardly ever have anything in anyway. I notice a new manufacturer sticker on the same tubes, "Kyowa Kirin", which might be one reason for the delay in getting new stuff in. After my next blood test and follow up on Monday I'll submit another prescription and maybe I'll keep two or three tubes back as a buffer for this sort of thing.
It's the same here in Australia but I only get a month (or two depending whether the pharmacist reads the script or not) at a time. I always keep a few not-quite-empty bottles around and a few sachets as emergency stock.
There has been shortage of Testogel in my country too. It's been like that the whole time I have been on T. That's about a year now. Now I have some for 3 weeks and they said that they propably get more towards the end of this year. That was it for me. It has been difficult to get it every time I needed more. I switched to Nebido. If it's possible it's propably wise to try to get something else.
This would have been devastating if I was just starting. I had to start with the gel. Or if I was afraid of needles. I feel lucky because it was possible to get nebido instead.
Testogel back in stock today. My pharmacy has just contacted me. (I'm in England)