I was recently (two months ago) diagnosed with ADHD and put on 20mg twice a day Adderall IR. My doctor's office is fairly busy, and since I work full time during the day I kinda need to take whatever appointments I can get in the evenings. Well, it just so happened that my appointment for a refill fell only 2.5 weeks after my last appointment. To add to the frustration, my doctor decided that we don't need to see each other each month and proceeded to write a prescription for 180 20mg Adderall IR tabs!

Needless to say, the pharmacy I normally go to refused to even touch the scrip. I took it to another pharmacy; they didn't have enough on hand to fill it, and would not do a partial fill on narcotics. Off to the 3rd pharmacy. She didn't have enough on hand either, but agreed to order it and give it to me in a week.

In the mean time, I called the doctor's office and asked if I could just trade the scrip in for a 30 day supply, since it would be easier to fill. I was instead handed ANOTHER scrip for 30 days worth 20mg 2 x per day. Since I had already dropped off the 90 day supply at one pharmacy, I took the smaller one to the original. This time, I really must have thrown up a red flag becauase the pharmacy manager himself pulled me into a private room and showed me copies of my previous Adderall scrips and asked why I was trying to refill this so soon.

Because we have been titrating my dose up to the proper level, I don't have any Adderall left from my last scrip (it was 30 x 20mg tabs). I took my scrip to a 4th (YES FOURTH) pharmacy and told them that I don't have insurance (so they woudln't check when the last time I filled was). They are supposed to fill it over night and call me in the morning when it's ready.

I am not a drug addict, and I really have no desire to abuse my Adderall scrip. But I FEEL LIKE A DRUG ADDICT! I don't know if my pharmacy will call my doctor and set off a negative chain of events, or if the pharmacy will even fill my scrips any more. I don't know what to do - has anyone been here before? I'm really scared, not only of being accused of doctor or pharmacy shopping (which I guess is what I was doing, isn't it?) but also because I do not want to get cut off from the one medication that has helped me in the 15+ years I have been trying to sort out my attention problems.

Can anyone offer any anecdotal evidence from their own lives, or any advice? Thanks!

I went to the pharmacy and with my Ritalin prescrition.

The first prescription I filled fine, no problems... my psychiatrist marked 2 repeats on that prescription.

However, I went back to him before finishing my bottle, and he changed my prescription again. This time for more, and again wrote for it to be repeated 2x.

When the pharmacy filled my nnewest prescription and gave it to me, they said, they could not follow the repeat (next time I needed a repeat) that was specified on the prescription,and that they would need to call my psychiatrist about it........ I was like " ok whatever..." Cutting them off to ask another un-related question.

I didnt think about it untill after I left... but I stated to ponder how often people would write their own repeats... and pondered if the pharmacy suspected that I might have done that.

Not a good feeling. :(

In some states, like KY for instance, it's not a matter of the pharmacy calling your Dr. if they are suspicious of anything per se. The truth is, in KY we have a new computer database that is for tracking controlled substance fraud, and it is called "KASPER." It was the first of its kind in the nation, and is now being modeled by some other states. It will likely be coming to most states I suspect one day, although I am not sure how big of an impact it will actually make on a national level, I do know that it has had an impact in KY.

What you did with your script would not have been possible in KY. The pharmacist here would have known in about 15 minutes or less anything and everything concerning your personal controlled substance history.

I hope that all this works out in your best interest, as I know that the punishments for those who violate the drug laws in this country do not really fit the crime, IMO. Keep us posted, and good luck.


Here is a quote from an article describing the "KASPER" database,

"FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 16, 2005) – The Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ Office of Inspector General today unveiled its enhanced Web-based, state-operated database that is used to identify and prevent controlled substance abuse in Kentucky. This makes Kentucky the first state in the nation to provide a self-service, Web-based system for tracking all schedule II-V prescription drugs.

The Enhanced Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting program, known as eKASPER, is a true technological success story for Kentucky. “eKASPER will allow pharmacists, physicians, law enforcement and other qualified users to get KASPER reports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week within 15 minutes or less of making a request, compared to the current fax only request system that can take from 2 hours to 3 weeks to issue a report,” says CHFS’ Inspector General Robert J. Benvenuti, III. “eKASPER is the most effective and efficient tool ever implemented to combat prescription drug abuse in Kentucky. Its benefit will be immediate and powerful and have an incredibly positive impact on the citizens of the Commonwealth.”

Here is a link to the whole article if anyone is interested in reading more about this. http://chfs.ky.gov/news/CHFS031605A.htm