URGENT! Tikosyn Shortage!'

I have just received a letter from Southlake advising of a SHORTAGE of TIKOSYN (dofetilide). They do not expect their next shipment until early March at the very earliest.

Fortunately, With each renewal of 50 days | have been left with part of a strip of capsules and had just renewed in December/January, but don't think I Will make it until they get their supply in. Anyone else get such a letter or phone call? The letter is Saying they will look at alternative therapies in the meantime.

Anyone on or familiar with Tlkosyn PLEASE TAKE NOTE!

Murray L

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Tikosyn uptake Dec 2011 500ug b.i.d. NSR since!
Herein lies opinion, not professional advice, which all are well advised to seek.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2013 07:26PM by Murray L.

Murray - this says the shortage is resolved...

[www.empr.com]#


.
February 06, 2008
Tikosyn shortage resolved
Pfizer is reporting that the temporary Tikosyn (dofetilide) shortage has been resolved and that all dosage strengths (0.125mg, 0.25mg, and 0.5mg) are once again available. The product outage was due to an unforeseen manufacturing issue coupled with distribution regulations for Tikosyn, and was not the result of any efficacy or safety concern with Tikosyn. Tikosyn is indicated for the maintenance of normal sinus rhythm in patients with atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter of >1 week and for the conversion of atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter to normal sinus rhythm.

For more information call (800) 438-1985 or visit www.tikosyn.com.

As always, thank you Jackie for your input. I am not getting a response from Southlake yet and have left a voicemail. They are still saying that we are looking at the end of February or early March before we see the next shipment of Tikosyn here. The nurse practitioner said "We are trying to source product through the USA as we speak". So looks like both Canada AND the USA have had their problems with Tikosyn production.

Hopefully I will get good news from Southlake tomorrow or early next week. We are at the start of a massive snow storm here with up to 35cm expected by tomorrow. We hear New England may get 65 cm., so we're not complaining. It's still BBQ weather here in Canada. Go figure.

Murray L

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Tikosyn uptake Dec 2011 500ug b.i.d. NSR since!
Herein lies opinion, not professional advice, which all are well advised to seek.

Murray - I totally missed the date... obviously.... I was just focused on the resolution... Wonder why these shortages are ongoing, apparently?
Jackie

Hi Jackie:
Pfizer has had several shortages of dofetilide apparently over the past few years; easy enough to miss. I have been rummaging around for remainders of prescriptions of dofetilide (TIKOSYN) and am probably good until the first week of March, which is when they are saying that Pfizer will deliver or they will get some from other facilities.

It absolutely boggles my mind that Pfizer (yet again) runs short of vital medications. We had folks here running around last year looking for chemotherapy medications on their own due to a shortage of those meds.

Think we may luck out here and find supply before running out. Do NOT want my left atrium to stop shrinking. Need to get under 50mm before I am comfortable having a successful ablation. And the longer I can stay on Tikosyn, the farther advanced the state of the art in ablations.

I am really curious as to who has had ablation with an enlarged left atrium?

And on that note, our daughter is in 4th. year of Human Kineseology at Guelph University up here. She has been blessed to be included in undergraduate human anatomy lab (dissection) in both third and forth years and will serve as a lab tutor while she does her Master's degree starting next year. This past Sunday, each of the thirty students in fourth year were permitted to invite their parents to visit the dissection lab. I was sure we'd have some pass out, but not one did. They had first response teams on hand. We got to see what the students do in the labs and got to examine the human body inside and out. Got to see several human hearts and how the ventricles and valves work, etc. Very informative. I did not realize how LARGE the left atrial appendage is! It is huge. Saw a normal size LA at about 40mm. Saw the brain of a person suffering from Alzheimer's next to a 'normal' brain and got to handle them. It was an amazing experience. This is apparently the ONLY undergraduate dissection program of its kind in North America. We are very proud of our daughter - just being accepted into the class is an honour and the thirty students are a very close knit group; very humble and respectful of the donor's, who have made a huge contribution to anatomical education. There will be a communal service in April for all of the donor's families and for the donor's of course. Sunday, every single student (from the East coast all the way to the West coast) had their families in attendance! I expect that we will all be there at the service in April at the end of term. Our daughter is thinking about cardiology (pediatric) as she finds cardiac electrophysiology fascinating.

Murray L

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Tikosyn uptake Dec 2011 500ug b.i.d. NSR since!
Herein lies opinion, not professional advice, which all are well advised to seek.

Thanks, Murrray - Wonderful that your daughter is following the medical path. I wish her much success. Your visit to your daughter's lab brought back lots of memories for my lab experiences. While I was handling human hearts, little did I know I'd have such a personal, intense interest many years later... I'd have paid more attention to the chambers and definitely the LAA. Alzheimer's wasn't even on the radar of common pathology back then... compared to now. Nice that you had the experience to view these.

Jackie