Some Southern Colorado pharmacies struggling to find pain and fever meds for kids
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Southern Colorado parents and pharmacists are struggling to find pain and fever medicines for kids. The medicine shortage comes as Colorado ranks in the top ten for a surge in flu cases and hospitalizations.
Children's Colorado in Colorado Springs said the shortage of acetaminophen and ibuprofen isn't directly impacting the hospital, but officials are monitoring the issue.
After weeks of a historic number of babies and toddlers being admitted into Southern Colorado hospitals with RSV, case numbers are now trending down.
"With that said they’re still pretty high, but they’re not that record-setting volume like we’ve seen two to three weeks ago. Our admissions are down as well, and we’re at a place that feels better," said Dr. Michael DiStefano with Children's Colorado.
While hospital occupancy is thinning out, so are pharmacy shelves.
"Here at my own store, I couldn’t order it in. I went to Walmart and other places they didn’t have it. Where I ended up was a Safeway and that was a Safeway store brand," said Ronal Yoxey at Broadway Pharmacy.
Broadway Pharmacy in Pueblo started having trouble getting the high concentration of oral liquid ibuprofen and Tylenol for infants back in April.
"That has moved up to children’s Tylenol and Motrin which is years 2 to 11 years old," said Yoxey.
However, Yoxey explained that there are still generic over-the-counter medicines that can help.
"I think it was an underestimation as far as production. It’s not a raw material shortage. I think just the manufacturers it’s not a product that’s a top seller per se," said Yoxey.
Dr. DiStefano said while these medicines are nice to have, they're not critical.
"Fever doesn’t hurt a child, and so it may make them pretty miserable. I've been saying treat the child, not the number," said DiStefano.
Experts are warning parents to not substitute adult medicines if they can't find children's pain relievers.
In a statement, Johnson & Johnson said,
“We continue to experience high consumer demand. We are doing everything we can to make sure people have access to the products they need, including maximizing our production capacity, and running our sites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some products may be less readily available due to this increased demand but we are not experiencing an overall shortage of Children’s TYLENOL® or Children's MOTRIN® in the United States. We will continue to work with our retailers to provide these products throughout the Cold & Flu Season.”
Johnson & Johnson
