Nationwide epilepsy drug shortage impacting patient health

Patients at risk? Canadian drug shortage Ross McLaughlin spoke to a viewer who was unable to get her life-saving medication, and found out that she's not alone.

Global demand, manufacturing problems and a lack of active ingredients are all contributing to drug shortages in Canada.

A Vancouver woman contacted CTV News when she couldn’t locate a sufficient supply of her crucial anti-seizure drug, clobazam. Daina Balodis recently tried to fill a prescription for the medication at a Safeway pharmacy in Vancouver but was told they were out.

“My reaction was fear,” she said. “The implications of just having a seizure at any time when I’m walking, when I’m driving, when I’m cooking, you know, falling onto my stove. These meds are essential for me to live a normal life.”

Safeway was eventually able to find clobazam for Balodis at a Rexall pharmacy, but there were shortages at other pharmacies as well.

The Canadian League Against Epilepsy put out an alert urging doctors to find alternative medications for their patients.

However, switching between these types of medications can be complicated, and in some cases, even dangerous.

Dr. Mano Javidan with the Canadian League Against Epilepsy and director of the Epilepsy Program at Vancouver General Hospital says patients can have withdrawal symptoms when they suddenly stop taking clobazam because of the benzodiazepine withdrawal.

“A patient may go into repeated seizures without recovery in between,” said Javidan. “They may start noticing agitation, irritability, poor sleep. They could get anxiety symptoms, panic attacks, sweating, palpitations. All of these symptoms could cause significant distress to the patient.”

The last time Balodis was forced to switch to a different medication from clobazam, she had a seizure and ended up in the hospital.

“I don’t get warnings. They just happen,” said Balodis. “One minute I’m functioning normally, the next minute I’m on the floor.”

This isn’t the first time there’s been an issue with the supply of this crucial medication, and patients are often left scrambling to find alternatives. The Canadian Pharmacists Association says pharmacists are often dealing with many drug shortages at once.

“At any given time pharmacists are dealing with close to a hundred different drugs on shortage,” said Philip Emberly with the Canadian Pharmacists Association. “Very often pharmacists are the ones who are called on to manage and in some cases recommend alternatives to prescribers that they can use when there is a drug shortage.”

Drug shortages have become such a regular problem that a task force has been assembled to help patients and health care professionals deal with them. B.C. is the head of the provincial/ territorial Drug Shortages Task Team and says they’ve been in regular contact with Health Canada to stay up to date on the latest information available from the drug manufacturers’.

Drug companies voluntarily report when they are running low on certain drugs, but some experts believe that the reporting should be mandatory so health officials and doctors can prepare.

Clobazam is now entering the supply chain again but supplies are not back to normal yet. Other anti-seizure drugs are also in short supply.

Even though clobazam was in short supply in Canada, there was a healthy supply in the U.S., and getting Canadian approval to bring in alternative drugs can take a long time.

“It’s being done to protect the health of Canadians. Unfortunately it can delay things even further sometimes,” said Emberley.

The website DrugShortages.ca has about 800 drugs on its list, and critical shortages have been reported for some drugs used to treat arthritis and diabetes.