Nationwide insulin shortage impacting Las Vegas valley residents
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 8 million Americans use insulin, and now a cap on insulin production is impacting the nation including in the Las Vegas valley.
“It’s very scary to call your pharmacy and they tell you we don’t have it and the next question becomes when is it coming? Then the answer is we don’t know,” Awilda Concepcion said.
Concepcion has a teenage daughter who is diabetic and relies on insulin daily.
Drug manufacturers have announced production issues impacting Humalog or its generic brand Lisapro.
Concepcion’s daughter has an insulin pump, but they’ve been trying to get what they can.
“If her sugar is going high, the pump will automatically give more insulin to bring the number down so when it’s low, it’ll stop delivering insulin. Once you use an injectable, once that insulin is there, there’s no way to reduce that amount,” Concepcion explained. “We’ve been fortunate enough that we found a pharmacy that had a few vials and they held it for us and we went to purchase those vials. We paid out of pocket.”
Paying out of pocket may not always be an easy option for others. That’s why Dr. Eugene Shin, a primary care family physician at Valley Oaks Medical Group says don’t wait to refill your prescription.
“Patients are often frustrated, very scared. We just try to reassure them that there are other options left, that there’s always some different way to control diabetes,” Dr. Shin said.
Dr Shin said to stick closely to your diabetic diet and talk with your primary care doctor often.
“Stay in close contact with your primary doctor to see if there are alternatives, safe alternatives available through your insurance,” Dr. Shin added. “Oftentimes, the insurance companies can be the limiting factor on what they will approve.”
That’s exactly what Concepcion is doing.
“We’re definitely going to keep in touch with our endocrinologist, we’re going to obviously work with our daughter on conserving. I hate to use that word but conserving as much as we can,” Concepcion added. “Reach out to your doctor, reach out to other people, call different pharmacies if you need to, call manufacturers if you need to, just reach out.”
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