Residents concerned as over-the-counter medicines appear to be out of stock across Southland
As pollen count rises across the country with the coming of Spring, many Southern California stores and pharmacies find supply of over-the-counter medicine flying off the shelves with residents attempting to combat the sudden onset of sniffles.
Instead, shoppers are now often finding "out of stock" signs, as suppliers struggle to keep up with the unexpected increase in demand for common cold and flu treatments.
The apparent shortage has many scratching their head as the nation moves on from the traditional cold and flu seasons that come with winter.
"it's crazy that people are going back into that mindset now," said Allyson Garcia, who lives in East Los Angeles. "We have a lot more resources to kind of protect ourselves to not have to do that."
While doctors acknowledge the fact that it's possibly to get sick at any time, this time of year typically sees demand for over-the-counter meds increase due to the active pollen season, which often triggers intense allergies — specifically this year due to the constant deluge of winter storms that hit in recent months.
"It's easy to confuse your allergy symptoms with the cold symptoms," said Dr. Rishma Chand, with Dignity Health Northridge Hospital. "It could be that people think they're having common cold symptoms, where in fact they're having allergy symptoms, so you have to keep that in mind."
In response to the shortage, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a statement, which read in part:
"The public should rest assured the FDA is working closely with numerous manufacturers and others in the supply chain to understand, mitigate and prevent or reduce the impact of intermittent or increased demand of certain products. The FDA understands that manufacturers expect availability to continue to increase in the near future."
In the meantime, health experts recommend that people keep up with their primary physicians on symptoms they're experiencing and how to treat them.
"Wash your hands, stay away from anybody who's sick, wearing a mask and avoiding other people if you're sick yourself," Chand said. "It's okay to still wash your hands and sanitize your commonly touched surfaces."
Upon request, several drug manufacturers were unavailable for comment.
