Where's all the paracetamol gone?

[damekindness]

Not sure if I'm imagining this but there seems to be less and less paracetamol and other Over The Counter painkillers on the shelves in shops ? None in the local Aldi for weeks.

Reminds me of that old crap joke

Why are there never any aspirin in the jungle?

Because the paracetamol.

Sorry.

Haven’t noticed the paracetamol but My pharmacist says there’s no mini pill to renew my prescription and he may not find any till next year!

Loads on poundland, poundstretcher, asda, pharmacy here! I don't buy it myself but I have noticed when buying other things.

Not sure why people would be stockpiling Ibuprofen and Paracetamol though. Aren't they made in the UK?

Yes, I noticed this in various spots around NI in the past couple of weeks - I was on holiday from Germany and ironically one of the things we do when we come over is to buy OTC medicines that are way cheaper in the UK than on the continent. You can only buy painkillers two packets at.a time so we visisted9 a few chemists and supermarkets and yes I noticed either paracetamol or inuprofen out of stock more often than usual.

I haven't noticed low stock but it's not something I buy often. Maybe one packet every 3 months just so we've got some on hand if one of us has period pain or a headache.

I'm more concerned, pre Brexit, about whether we'll get shortages on prescription medications. 2 years ago the NHS had procurement issues with a couple of my meds including Forceval (a broad spectrum multivitamin which I need as I can't absorb the full amount of food nutrients through my gut.)

I can make good on Forceval by buying high strength OTC multivits, but what if amitryptyline runs short??

hate taking them personally

I'm not sure that anyone actually likes taking painkillers. I guess people would prefer to take painkillers than be in actual pain??

The price has gone up too, £1.30 for a pack of 16 in a shop the other day but ibuprofen were only 25p

HRT is very thin on the ground.
Boris has yet to experience the full force of a group of women who haven’t had their HRT. It could get ugly

@Lowlandlucky the cost of ibuprofen at Boots online seems really high too. I checked after I posted earlier just to see because I'll need some more this week. Some are £3 or £4 for only a packet of 16. That’s crazy. But maybe that’s because it’s Nurofen instead of house brand? You can get a bottle of house brand 200 tablets for $4 at Target in the USA. I’m definitely stocking up when I go back.

It's limited to 2 packs per purchase. So you can't stock pile in one go from one shop. You would have to go to different shops

Weirdly I noticed an absence of own brand Asprin in my local area. Wanted some for blood thinning reason but all there is is a ton of Paracetamol and Ibuprofin. Or the expensive branded stuff.

I work in pharmacy and we didn't get any paracetamol delivered for the shop for bloody weeks! We are just guessing that manufacturers are stockpiling (which isn't necessarily due to Brexit, I think they do it every year). Things that are also hard to get hold of at the moment include insulin/lots of creams/all HRT and noriday birth control/few vitamins. Things always go out of stock, but not this much at once. I say "I'm so sorry it's a manufacturing supply issue" about 100 times a day.

@ByeByeMissAmericanPie in our pharmacy we call the HRT drawer "the little drawer of domestic bliss"

It's the HRT problem you need to worry about.
I'm a general prepper. Not noticed any paracetamol supply problem in my area.

Went to Aldi on Sunday- lots there.

I bought some yesterday, full shelves

I take both paracetamol and Ibruprofen for chronic pain. Used to be on prescription, now have to get it over the counter.

As soon as it was taken off prescription, I found that it was missing off the shelves.

I find by going to supermarket pharmacy I can usually get the 400mg ibuprofen. I can also pick up a 96 pack from there.

I noticed the other day. Aldi had no ordinarily paracetamol. I thought it most odd...

We like the Tesco dissolvable paracetamol which have been hard to get here in NI. but no shortage of the tablet form. Managed to buy 2 boxes of dissolvable from Tesco this week and 2 from Home Bargains.

Interesting - I had noticed, in an idle way, but put it down to the big local festival and the hoardes of hungover teens

Am a bit about the accusation that this is somehow down to prepper stockpiling. Someone chucking in an extra packet in their weekly shop isn’t going to cause this widespread issue. As PP have said, it sounds like a supply chain issue.

Don’t have a problem here. And migraleve which was out of stock for a year or so is now back on the shelves

Not too badly off for ibruprofen and paracetamol here - although we do seem to have more of the expensive 'branded' stock than off brand cheapies.

However, we are running low on stocks of tinfoil, thanks to @TeamUnicorn...

None in our local Asda or local Tesco Express for the last couple of weeks. Usually there is a full shelf at least in Asda so don't know what's going on here

@1forAll74 what do you mean? You can't buy more than 2 packs at a time anywhere?

Paracetamol is made in the U.K. so I shouldn't be adversely affected by Brexit. Suspect it's just people stocking up without realising that, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of brexit shortages!