Over-the-counter medications tough to find this cold, flu season

Demand for over-the-counter medications to ease suffering related to a spike in colds, flu and covid has left shelves empty and shop owners frustrated in recent weeks.

“It’s the trifecta,” said Ed Christofano, owner of Hayden’s Pharmacy stores in Youngwood, Mt. Pleasant and Donegal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there have been at least 8.7 million flu cases as of Friday, Dec. 2, resulting in 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths.

The cumulative hospitalization rate in the government’s FluSurv-NET system is higher than the rate observed in the first week of December during every previous season since 2010-11, the CDC said.

At Mainline Pharmacy in Harrison City, co-owner Jack Moschgat said “pretty much anything” cough- and cold-related has been hard to find for the past few months. On the shelves at the pharmacy, about half of the usual quantity of cough drops were available Wednesday morning.

“I think (customers) are seeing it. If they go to Walmart or wherever and they can’t find it, then they try here, and we don’t have it either, and they’re kind of used to it,” Moschgat said. “I just explain to them, it’s not really our fault, it’s just, if you can’t get it, there’s not a whole lot that you can do, unfortunately.”

When Moschgat contacts his pharmacy’s suppliers, they will sometimes say that they have no stock of the products he needs.

“It will sometimes give you a release date, and some of those have been a month or two out at least at a time,” he said.

Mucinex, Robitussin, cough drops and other cough and cold remedies, particularly products intended for children, have been most difficult to keep on the shelves, he said.

“It’s not as bad as it was right now. We weren’t able to get Mucinex at all for a while, but it looks like we were able to get some of that,” he said, gesturing to a few boxes of the pills. “Usually, we would have cough syrups down there. We probably have maybe 60% of what we would usually have.”

More people are getting colds right now, Rite Aid spokeswoman Catherine Carter said.

The chain, which has more than 500 locations in Pennsylvania, is working with suppliers to meet the demand for medicine, she said.

“If customers don’t see their preferred cold/flu treatment products on the shelf, they should speak with the pharmacist for recommendations on other (over-the-counter) options that best suit their needs,” Carter said.

At a Rite Aid in Harrison City, customer Kathy Mataya was unable to find her usual brand of Chloraseptic sore throat relief spray or lozenges for her granddaughter.

“It’s usually in a spray bottle, and I don’t see it,” she said. “I always come here — this is where I always shop.”

She decided to try a similar Mucinex brand spray on a recommendation from the store manager, who said that cough and cold products have been hard to find.

“I think there’s a lot of strep going around, and that kind of thing,” Mataya said, looking at an empty portion of shelf where the Chloraseptic spray would normally be.

At the Rite Aid in downtown Latrobe, assistant manager T.J. Daum said there have been problems getting shipments of some name-brand cough and cold medications since September.

“We’re having a hard time getting them, so we’re trying to bring in other manufacturers,” he said. “We’ve been getting a few things in here and there, but nothing really significant.”

A number of adult cold and flu medications and children’s pain relief products were among over-the-counter items in short supply at the store Wednesday.

Daum said supply issues also have affected some prescriptions at the store.

“In the pharmacy, they’re having a really hard time getting antibiotics in for people,” he said. “We can only do what we can do.”

Amy Thibault, lead director of external communications at CVS Pharmacy, said the chain, which has nearly 500 locations in Pa., is seeing “increased demand” for cold, flu, and pain relief products.

“In the event a local store experiences a temporary product shortage, our teams have a process in place to replenish supply,” Thibault said.

At Vaccare’s Pharmacy in downtown Greensburg, the last independent pharmacy in the city, Esther Rahl said customers are buying a lot of antihistamines and decongestants, as well as the over-the-counter cough medications.

“The only thing available is dextromethorphan,” which is an over-the-counter cough suppressant, said Rahl, whose father James Vaccare started the pharmacy in 1957.

And once they are out of it, “it’s on backlog” when attempting to order more, Rahl said.