Meth addicts ruining it for the rest of us

[sal_amanda]

This is my understanding of the Sudafed situation.  Somehow people are making meth out of regular old store-bought Sudafed, so they're trying to cut back on the amounts of Sudafed one can buy all at once.  I don't really see how this would work as anyone who really wanted enough of the stuff could just go from store to store and have lots of friends helping out or whatever, but who am I to say?

Anyway.  This is where it now affects the average person.  In order to stop people from buying mass quanities, if you want to buy real Sudafed, with actual pseudoephedrine in it, you have to go up to the pharmacy counter and ask for a box.  In fact, any medication that has pseudoephedrine in it must now be obtained from the pharmacy counter.  

Well, as a result of this, many medications have cut out the pseudoephedrine and changed it to some other crappy ingredient that doesn't work as well.  Even Sudafed itself offers this crappy version as Sudafed PE or some such crap.  At least they've given it a different name, but I'm not fooled anyway, though that doesn't mean others are not.  

Now this is where it affects me personally.  I, of course, cannot currently take Sudafed or such products right now anyway.  However, John has been battling some bug or another (we're starting to suspect it's strep so we're trying to keep it contained so I don't get it) and has been taking some Tylenol Cold medicine that we bought last year before all this drug nonsense began, and we needed to buy some more.  Target's vast selection included very few products that actually contained pseudoephedrine, as well as the other ingredients in the old Tylenol, but there was a nice looking Advil cold product that also included the good stuff for coughing and the good stuff for runny nose.  Didn't matter, though, because the pharmacy was closed at the moment so we couldn't get it anyway.  We were next door at Wegman's shortly thereafter and went to their cold medicine aisle, as their pharmacy was still open.  No Advil cold products whatsoever, which I thought was super weird, but more annoying was the fact that there was not a single other medication there that contained all four of the major cold medicine ingredients we were looking for.  There were a couple of things with the sudafed and acetaminophen, but not the other two vital ingredients needed.  

We stood in that stupid aisle for a ridiculous amount of time, unable to find anything that would actually fulfill our simple needs.  In the end, we gave up and bought the new version of Tylenol Cold, but I have my doubts it'll be as good.  Oh, and also, now it only lasts four hours instead of six, which totally blows in a nightime cole medicine.  

All we wanted was cold medicine and the stupid meth addicts had to to go and screw it up for everybody.  Thanks a lot, assholes.

Comments

[busybusymama.livejournal.com]

See, now I would have assumed that you would have had undying compassion for the meth addicts. I guess even you can be pushed too far. :)

Hope he gets better soon. AND that you don't get it. Being sick is SO exaccerbated in pregnancy (as if pregnancy wasn't enough).

[beatmbg.livejournal.com]

Its been like that out here for almost as long as we've been here. Meth addiction really got started in OR and it moved here quick, you should see some of the commercials they have trying to tell people not to try it, even once...SICK!! Anyway, I'm currently loving the cold I have acquired from who knows where. Scott doesn't have it yet. Uncle John apparently says you can have sudafed in the morning, but that sounds a little odd to me. I'm sticking with my unisom and tylonal for now, but Yesterday I didn't take my unisom, and I guess the lovely morning sickness is NO WHERE NEAR GONE!! I hate this kid already and it hasn't even reached puberty. Thought I was gonna puke and couldn't breath most of the day. NO MORE CHILDREN, there is NO WAY they're worth THIS!!! I think I'm gonna get an aneurism (sp?) from blowing my nose.

Anyway, maybe john should get a throat culture, really no other way to know if thats what it is, and you don't want to start taking antibiotics, which is really the only thing that will help if its strep, if it isn't. And you'll get used to going to get sudafed during pharmacy hours soon enough. Good luck with it all!!!!

[i-am-solid.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the problem I had at Thanksgiving when I used up all my Tylenol severe cold stuff. It seems Tylenol doesn't make the good stuff anymore and I spent way too much time in way too many pharmacies looking for one pill that had everything I wanted. I've got signatures at pharmacies all over NY from that week, buying things with REAL decongestant trying to find a new favorite. Even Nyquil is useless now.

[sal_amanda]

LOL. I'm actually much less sympathetic than you'd think. I have sympathy for certain people that I feel really deserve it, but for the most part, meth addicts are suburban rich kids looking for something to do. I'm a lot more cynical than I guess I come across. ;)

[sal_amanda]

What I've heard about Sudafed use is that they're really not sure if it's okay during pregnancy or not. They know it constricts the mucus membranes so the concern is what else is it constricting in your body. So it might be okay, but they don't really know for sure.

John just went to the urgent care center so he doesn't have to wait to see if his doctor has an appointment tomorrow. He'd probably just wait if we weren't trying to get him no longer contagious for me.

I think I could maybe do one more pregnancy and then maybe adopt one. Or, depending on how the rest of this goes, perhaps I'll go straight to adoption after this. ;)

[sal_amanda]

It's so ridiculous. I don't want to buy stuff that doesn't work. I was trying to talk John into getting the Airborne, but he wasn't convinced. I'll probably switch to that myself next year.

[busybusymama.livejournal.com]

I am SO for the adoption (of course, referring to me, not you. You can do what you like). I think that I might poke my eyes out with knitting needles if I had to endure even one more single day of morning sickness. I do so feel sympathy for her(is it John's cousin's wife?). Please pass along my wishes for it (the morning sickness) to end soon. The only thing that ever helped me was zofran. $60 bucks a pill, that stuff...

[sal_amanda]

$60 a pill!?!?!?!? This is why I consider moving to Canada. Sheesh.