Medication

[hazelnik]

Does anyone know how to obtain prescription medication whilst cruising

[Anders]

Depends on what medication you need and where you will be cruising...

[John_Trusty]

Welcome to CF, and we're happy to help you. You may get better responses if you spend a few minutes filling the Profile page (click on your name to access) particularly with your boat and country location. As you can imagine, much will depend on those two factors.

[Rumrace]

Don’t go to Russia with Weed oil and ask for sympathy or even cross a state line.
Health Canada has a list of recommendations travelling. Shoppers Drug mart can renew a script and send it to you anywhere it’s legal. You should definitely travel with the details of the drug and the script. My limited experience carrying medication in US Australia and Mexico Just a quick read and they were fine.

[TrentePieds]

Welcome Hazelnik :-)

I think you need to ask that question of the local health authority wherever you are now located. Doing so only takes a phone call to your local family doctor or to your local apothecary.

If, for instance, you live in England, whether prescription drugs are free, courtesy of the NHS, or not depends on quite a number of things, and we in this international forum could not possibly give you sound guidance. Only your local health authority can do that! The same would hold true whatever country you live in.

You will also need to deal with the fact that your family doctor, may, at an apothecary's request and without actually seeing you at his surgery, authorize an "emergency" renewal of your prescription IF he knows the apothecary, but he will be prevented by professional ethics and by the regulations of his professional college from doing so if he does not know the apothecary.

There may also be difficulties relating to shipping the drugs twixt you "home location" and wherever you are while cruising. Apothecaries outside your "home cunty" may not be willing, or permitted, to fill a prescription issued in that country. So since you are asking because you intend to go cruising, you are, unfortunately, asking in the wrong place :-)

All the best to you.

TrentePieds

[JPA Cate]

Hello, hazelnik,

If you have a family physician, get her or him to write a letter for you saying what the medications you need and the dosages are. There's a little yellow card they can fill out, too, that one keeps with one's passport, and if the Customs folks are interested in your drugs, you can show it to them, and the drugs and where they are.

In a country new to you, you can pick a doc at random, paying for the visit, of course, and they'll help you out. Be aware that some medications are simply not available in some countries, or not allowed.

Ann

[sck5]

You cant depend on getting many medications in other countries. It isnt so much a question of regulations/prescriptions as it is simple availability. Newer antidepressants are not available in many places. Same for many pain killers. One solution is to get a friend to pick them up and send them to you via courier. Another is to buy what you need before you leave. That is what we did - a trip to Canada made it all much cheaper!