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Anonymous ID: 47d3e7 March 24, 2020, 4:48 p.m. No.8552468   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>2484 >>2501

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/24/stop-hoarding-hydroxychloroquine-many-americans-including-me-need-it/

 

Stop hoarding hydroxychloroquine. Many Americans, including me, need it.

 

Forty-one pills. That’s how much medication I have left, with no guarantees for next month. I take the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine (brand-name Plaquenil) off-label to treat an autoimmune disorder, and like Americans across the country who battle autoimmune diseases including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, I’m facing a shortage of this life-preserving drug.

 

Autoimmune disorders remain poorly understood. The general theory is that our bodies came into contact with a virus or bacteria that sent our immune systems into overdrive to combat infection, but our systems got confused and attacked healthy tissue, instead. There are no cures, only the medications that keep us going.

 

I have taken hydroxychloroquine for 14 years, since I was diagnosed at 26 with Sjogren’s syndrome, a systemic disease that causes dry eyes, dry mouth, crushing fatigue and joint pain. Sjogren’s can also damage a patient’s kidneys, liver, lungs, nerves, skin and joints.

 

In White House briefings last week, President Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as a game-changer and talked up its anecdotal promise as a treatment for covid-19. After I heard my medication mentioned on the news, I rushed to obtain a 90-day supply. A sympathetic pharmacist told me, “You’re exactly the person I want to get this medication to” — before breaking the news that pills are on back order and that I wasn’t authorized for a 90-day supply even with 11 monthly refills on file.

 

After hours on the phone with multiple pharmacies, my health insurer and my rheumatologist’s office, I received approval for a three-month supply of “maintenance medication” from a mail-order pharmacy. Already, the expected delivery date has been pushed back two days. I’ll believe the shipment when I see it.

 

Media reports indicate that patients nationwide are having difficulty filling prescriptions as hospitals stock up amid an uptick in doctors and dentists taking it prophylactically and prescribing it to friends and relatives who aren’t yet sick. As of Monday, pharmacy boards in only six states (Texas, Idaho, Ohio, Nevada, Louisiana and North Carolina) had tightened controls on prescribing. The covid-19 hot spots of New York, Washington state and California have not instituted such measures. Meanwhile, stories of fatal self-poisonings and overdoses have emerged.