Why have I had trouble lately filling my child's vitamin prescription at my pharmacy?

From time to time, the stock of prescription children's vitamins with fluoride backs up for weeks or even months, says Dr. Michale Grosso, a pediatrician and senior vice president of medical affairs at Huntington Hospital.

"These kind of issues come up rather often. It filters back from patients. It's hard to know whether it's related to a specific pharmacy chain or whether it's broader," he says.

This time, apparently, it's something broader. This year, one of the companies that makes the fluoride vitamins stopped making them, and that caused a months-long diminishing of supply, says a CVS pharmacist who is not allowed by the company to be quoted officially. Fluoridated vitamins are more in demand on Long Island than in other places in the country because most of the region's water supply doesn't already contain fluoride, the pharmacist says.

However, if you have trouble getting your child's prescription filled or renewed at one pharmacy chain, try another, because it may have been able to get a shipment.

If that doesn't work, there are other alternatives.

Let your pediatrician know about the problem. Fluoride, which has to be prescribed by a doctor, can be prescribed as a stand-alone drop and combined with an over-the-counter multivitamin, for instance, Grosso says. "It's never been something we couldn't work around with another version of the same product," Grosso says.

NEED HELP with a parenting question? Write to Beth Whitehouse, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4250, or e-mail her.