This is what Canada’s pain medication shortages have been like for chronic pain patients

This week, she was finally able to fill her normal prescription to treat the degenerative disc disease that has deteriorated the cushioning in her spine.

A manufacturing disruption last summer of drugs that contain acetaminophen with oxycodone, which includes those by the brand name Percocet, and acetaminophen with codeine, such as Tylenol 3, obstructed her access for nearly six months.

Health Canada told The Canadian Press drugs containing oxycodone should generally be available now. However, the federal agency said some shortages continue to be reported and some supplies may still be constrained. Availability is expected to improve throughout December. As for shortages of acetaminophen with codeine, Health Canada said most are resolved.

Godda said she is hopeful about the return of supply, but is aware that “just as quickly as it’s come back, it could be taken away.”

The Canadian Press spoke to several chronic pain patients who had no forewarning that their pain medications would be out of stock at the pharmacy. They suddenly faced life-altering realities, including withdrawal, the return of debilitating pain, and the arduous pursuit of switching opioid medications.

Here’s a look at some of their experiences.

AMANDA GODDA, 42

Godda started taking acetaminophen with oxycodone in 2021, despite her initial hesitation to start narcotics.

She had self-managed a herniated disk since 2015, but the pain radiating down her leg and numbing her thigh was finally too much to deal with on her own.

For several years she returned to a sense of relative normalcy where she could manage social media for an Indigenous music festival, go out for meals with friends and grocery shop.

But since switching medications to a generic equivalent last summer, she said she’s spent every day in bed with a sharp, searing, unrelenting pain in her low back, right hip and both knees. A food bank drops off groceries, and an Indigenous women’s organization brings hot meals some days.

Dr. Hance Clarke, an anesthesiologist and medical director of the Pain Research Unit at Toronto General Hospital, said generic medications are equivalent, but not identical.

Swapping for generic drugs is common, but the way a person metabolizes them is distinct, he said, speaking generally about the process.

“It’s always a trial to see, have we hit the right dose if you’re changing that? And I know that’s a bit of a frustrating place to be for sure,” Clarke said.

Godda said she has broken teeth from clenching her jaw during tremendous bursts of pain just from standing up, or turning over in bed. She described feeling trapped in her own body, at the mercy of supply chains, still uncertain each week if her prescription will be there.

“It’s daunting as hell, but it I mean, at the end of the day, I can’t ruminate on that because that will create anxiety. And if I’m anxious, my body is tense. And if my body is tense, my pain is heightened.”

KERRI MACPHERSON, 51

Kerri MacPherson says Tylenol 4 is finally back on her pharmacy shelf after a barren nine months.

“I took the month-worth my benefits paid for, and paid for another month full price in case they were shorted again,” said MacPherson, who lives in Hinton, a town in the foothills of Alberta, northeast of Jasper.

MacPherson was born with a clubfoot on the right, which has led to osteoarthritis in most of her joints — knees, hips, spine and the top of her pelvis. Her wrists, elbows and shoulders are damaged from using crutches most of her life. She said standing or even laying down causes the dogged pain in her lower back to burn.

To manage the pain she takes Tylenol 3 during the day and Tylenol 4, which contains more codeine, at night. She learned in April the latter was unavailable because of the shortage. Her doctor called in codeine tablets as a substitute to take with Tylenol, but then those became unavailable in October.

MacPherson said she has a high pain tolerance as a result of dealing with these challenges since birth, and has pushed through a lot in order to continue working and qualifying for benefits.

“But not everyone can do that. I have my days where I can’t take it, and I can’t imagine someone who feels that way every day being told, ‘Sorry there is no help for you.'”

SHAWNA DUNN, 46

Shawna Dunn said she called every pharmacy in Calgary and Edmonton last month when she learned there was a shortage of the opioid she has been prescribed for chronic back pain. She had been on it for almost a decade, after getting caught in a small avalanche skiing in 2015.

They did not have it and now she’s out. She said she was told nothing would be available until at least February or March.

Her family doctor is transitioning her to morphine and tapered her off of the opioid, which she asked not to be specified for safety concerns. The stress and anxiety of it all has led to visits to the emergency department with high blood pressure, she said. She described feeling a lot more sciatic pain, like an electric jolt down her legs, shooting into her hips and backside.

Clarke, the Toronto-based pain physician, said the nervous system immediately recognizes when there’s a change to an opioid prescription.

“If someone’s been stable on this medication and now they’ve been changed because they have to, and they haven’t hit exactly the number of receptors or the occupancy of what that medication was doing before. Your body will scream at you and say, ‘What have you done’?”

Dunn says it’s hard to move lately, and near impossible to sleep. “I am really scared,” she said.

LAUR KELLY, 42

Laur Kelly knows what it’s like to go through withdrawal because of a drug supply shortage.

Days before Christmas last year, Kelly said their pharmacy in the Greater Toronto Area could not refill their prescription of Tramadol, an opioid impacted by a shortage last December, which they had been taking for almost nine years.

“I was gripped with fear,” said Kelly.

Mina Tadros, an associate professor at University of Toronto’s pharmacy faculty, said the likelihood of opioid shortages is slightly higher when compared to other classes of drugs because there are only a few manufactures, given the regulatory hurdles of producing controlled substances.

A pharmacist offered Kelly what they had in stock, which was a smaller dose taken more frequently.

“I went from 300 milligrams in my system at all times to only being able to take 100 milligrams at a time,” Kelly said.

Exhaustion, brain fog, and sleepless nights followed. They recount how their life shrunk back to one that revolves around pain, the way it did when they suffered whiplash and a bad concussion in a car accident at 17 years old, which led to a chronic pain disorder called fibromyalgia.

Since the shortage, Kelly has tried similar drugs, but said nothing has been as effective. By July, they had taken all 18 of their sick days. They adjusted their work schedule to start the day closer to noon because getting out of bed in the morning has been so dreadful and agonizing. They said it feels like their body is burning and it is hard to breathe.

As a second Christmas nears without their usual prescription, Kelly said they have given up on trying to find out when it will return.

“It brings me back to those days where the pain was so encompassing that I did have to drop out of school, and I wasn’t able to work, and I had a very small life.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 18, 2025.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

Hannah Alberga, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

This is what Canada’s pain medication shortages have been like for chronic pain patients

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