I was in a thrift store the other day and saw a big laundry basket filled to the top with sealed retail boxes of Primatene Mist refills & refills + mouthpieces packages. All the units were marked 2 each. They looked to be marked down from a retail price of 11.98. Expiration dates were 04/2008 so the stuff was still good for a while.
I didn’t pay it much mind as pharmaceuticals are well out of my “buy it and flip it” area of expertise, but I checked it out when I got home, and discovered that the units were selling for around $ 10 per package.
EBay stuff normally sells at a substantive discount. Why are people paying near retail prices + a chunky shipping charge for these items when they could get them at retail for a dollar or two more per package?
I don’t think this is always the case. IME a lot of eBay users are not bargain hunters as much as people who would just rather shop online than leave the house, and eBay is the first place they came upon.
Apparently, there’s a thriving almost-black market for the stuff, as it’s not being sold in stores (in the US, at least) any more. Seems there are concerns about (pick one or more)
People self-diagnosing and self-treating asthma
The propellent being harmful to humans and the enviroment
Drug abusers extracting the liquid epinepherine and shooting up.
Wouldn’t it be for the same reasons that anyone buys things on eBay? Such as:
** It’s not available in their local stores
** They live in a rural area and it’s easier to have things delivered to them
** They are homebound and buy things online
And if you buy on eBay and pay with PayPal, you don’t have to go through the entire process of creating an account on an unfamiliar web site, entering all your shipping and billing information, etc.
I’m not sure where you got this from. I bought a bottle less than a year ago while out cycling here in the bay area. (Never forgot the Albuterol after that trip.)
On their website it says you can find it at Shop Rite, Walgreens, CVS, duane reade, etc.
I second the relative rarity in drug stores. A while back, there was a manufacturing issue and no new capsules were being made for a time.
Don’t know why it’s OTC and albuterol isn’t, though. I had to use Primatene once when I left my albuterol at home and it was like being Strong Sad on caffeine x100.
And almost every one of them says “out of stock.” Amazon is a bit more to the point, but still cryptic. Rather than saying something like “out of stock, but we’ll have it soon” they have it tagged as “currently not available”
Considering I didn’t start buying it until August, I can assure you this isn’t true. It was fully in stock when I picked up a refill a couple of weeks ago.
I use the Primatene for when I get my everyonce-in-a-while dog allergies, which are usually in Spring or Autumn (when the furnace or A/C isn’t running to filter the air).
I bought a replacement tube/bottle-thing two days ago.
What struck me as odd is that it’s not on the restricted list. If I try to get some flippin’ Actifed, I have to go to the Pharmacist. For pure pharmaceutical epinepherine, I can grab it and pay at the normal checkout. Makes no sense to me.
Cleophus, I didn’t get any caffeine-type buzz. I even disobeyed the package’s directions and did NOT wait the obligatory one minute between puffs!
The Actifed thing is related to methamphetamine manufacture. Access to solid pseudoephedrine items are restricted. Last time I checked, in PA, liquid (cough syrup, liqui-gel pills, etc.) pseudoephedrine products are not similarily restricted, but manufacturers seem to have removed pseudoephedrine altogether, which sucks.
I might be atypical, but I was wired*, plus my heart felt like exploding.
My dad has COPD (I think those letters are in the right order) which is some kind of heart-lung issue, and while he has albuterol, he tends to run out of them before his refill is up and substitutes Primatene. He just bought a few inhalers at the Wal-Greens across the street a few days ago: so either the FDA backed down or Wal-Greens is dealing Primatene illegally.