The HCG crisis — when a critical fertility drug becomes nearly impossible to get
I’m posting this because I’m honestly at my wit’s end and wondering if anyone else is dealing with this. My wife and I have been doing fertility treatments for the past year, and HCG has been a critical part of her protocol. Her RE has used it both as a trigger shot and for luteal support. Well, last month we went to fill her prescription and the pharmacy said they’re completely out. Not just that location – apparently there’s a nationwide shortage that’s been going on for months now.
We’ve called literally 15 different pharmacies in our area and nobody has it. Her doctor’s office is scrambling to find alternatives but HCG was working really well for us. We’d finally gotten her levels where they needed to be. Now we’re looking at potentially delaying our next cycle or switching to something that might not work as well.
What’s crazy is that I take HCG as part of my TRT protocol (helps maintain fertility while on testosterone) and I’m having the same issue. My urologist says the shortage is affecting both fertility patients and men using it for hormone therapy. Has anyone found a reliable source? Are the compounding pharmacies any better? This feels like such a critical medication to just… run out of.
We’re going through the exact same thing! My fertility clinic switched me to Pregnyl instead of Ovidrel for my trigger shot last cycle because of shortages, but even that’s been hit or miss. My nurse told me the manufacturing issues have been going on since late last year and they don’t know when it’ll stabilize. We ended up finding a compounding pharmacy about 45 minutes away that had it, but it was way more expensive than the regular prescription. I’d call around to compounding pharmacies specifically – they seem to have more stock than the big chains. So frustrating when you’re already stressed about the whole fertility process and then you add supply chain issues on top of it.
Yeah this has been a nightmare for the TRT community too. I switched to gonadorelin as an alternative and honestly it’s been working pretty well for maintaining testicular function, might be worth asking your doctor about. The compounding pharmacies Sarah mentioned are def the way to go right now – I use Empower and they’ve been reliable, though like she said, not cheap. The shortage apparently has to do with FDA manufacturing issues at some of the major suppliers. My doc said some of his patients have had success with clinics that do their own compounding in-house if you can find one.