ADHD Medication Shortage Persists, Plaguing Patients in Chicago and Baltimore

The struggle to snag a steady supply of ADHD medication marches on more than a year after the Food and Drug Administration flagged a glaring nationwide shortage of Adderall. Patients and practitioners alike are hitting the wall of frustration as the quest to fill prescriptions for Adderall and its pharmacological kin like Ritalin and Vyvanse remains a recurring nightmare.

Caught in a maddening cycle, families are struggling as the shortage drags on, with some, like Jennifer Howell, a Lincoln Square resident, forced to ration her 10-year-old son's medication just to keep his ADHD symptoms in check. Howell described the dramatic change the medication made in her son Linus, saying "It was something that changed him within 24 hours," according to a Chicago Tribune report. Howell painstakingly phones dozens of pharmacies each month, a ritual now sadly shared by many in the ADHD community.

Across the grid, adults are equally ensnared by the short supply. Wendy Steele, 48, from Baltimore, frets over the impact on her 9-year-old son's education, as both have to skip or delay their ADHD medication routinely. "I'm fed up with it," Steele told NBC News, expressing concern for her son's school performance owing to the unavailability of his prescribed Concerta, a generic version of Ritalin.

Experts point fingers at several culprits for the crunch. The pandemic's impact on ADHD diagnoses, the ease of telehealth, and increased awareness about ADHD in adults have jammed the supply chain, fueling unprecedented demand, per a Chicago Tribune article. Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Administration and drug manufacturers have locked horns, with the DEA limiting production quotas for controlled substances like Adderall while companies bemoan the caps being too tight.

Generics aren't immune to the crisis either. Manufacturers like Aurobindo Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals have seen timelines for restocking ADHD medication push back repeatedly, according to the FDA's own database. As for the sticking it out, the brand-name Adderall somehow seems more accessible, but patients are often locked into chasing after generic versions due to insurance constraints, leaving them to deal with the lion's share of scarcity.

Doctors, now burdened with the additional task of hunting down these meds, find themselves rewriting prescriptions on the fly when pharmacies run dry of stock. Dr. Lenard Adler, director of the adult ADHD program at NYU Langone Medical Center, lamented, "About 30% to 40% of the prescriptions I write have to be rewritten," in an interview with NBC News.

While the FDA has given the nod to several generic versions of Vyvanse and advocates for various countermeasures, the shortages persist and the agency admits that the drug is still listed as in short supply. As Steele sums up the collective concern of millions affected by the crisis, "When is this going to end?"