Ordering Medicine From The Us

[DTMark]

I have to have a Ventolin inhaler for asthma.

My asthma is triggered by our cats and pretty much nothing else. It's "allergic adult onset asthma".

It isn't serious. Though asthma can potentially be fatal (Stuart Baggs for example) I haven't had what I'd call an asthma attack since I was about 6. But I have to have one of these inhalers in the house even though I can go days without using it.

Anyway, I've had it with the NHS prescriptions and the NHS generally. It is so haphazard I must find an alternative.

Private prescriptions involve travelling to Reading, about 25 miles, to the Bupa centre, they no longer do these in Guildford. This becomes a pain for repeat prescriptions which this is.

Ordering online in the UK is 1. relatively expensive and 2. seems to still require a doctor's prescription.

I can order online from outside the UK without a prescription. This involves buying in bulk, some of them will expire before use, so it's also expensive. On the other hand, it means I can avoid the NHS entirely which is the objective.

Does anyone have experience with ordering this or other medicine from overseas, especially the US?

[Turned Out Nice Again]

why don't you get rid of the cats?

[DTMark]

^ is the correct medical answer.

In reality, I thought most of it was due to a house dust mite allergy. Until we lost both our cats and went six months without any in the house.

During which period I didn't use the inhaler at all. So, fairly clear what the cause is.

Sadly, I didn't quite realise this until we adopted the three we have now. All of which are male which is supposedly worse for allergies.

In reality it's only a minor nuisance and doesn't cause me much grief, and getting rid of the cats isn't an option - they're all young, so we'll probably have them for at least another decade.

Antihistamines treat this perfectly well, but I still do have to have the inhaler in the house.

[libspero]

Not sure there is an easy way..

If it is a prescription drug then the system is geared up to make it as difficult as possible to obtain without seeing a doctor.

If you have friends who travel abroad regularly they could probably pick some up for you, other than that you're pretty much at the mercy of the NHS I'd say.

[MrPin]

Is it really easier to order from the USA? An anti hystamine which used to be available over the counter (can't remember name), was made prescription only because somebody died in America. It worked for me.

[whitevanman]

It's easy to get prescription drugs online. I've been doing it for a decade as I got fed up with the NHS. The official position is that you'll die from fake of low quality drugs. This has not happened to me yet, though I don't use inhalers.

I generally find that my dogs get much better service at the vets than I do at the doctors. I wish there were more private doctors about but the NHS has something of a monopoly.

[MrPin]

It's easy to get prescription drugs online. I've been doing it for a decade as I got fed up with the NHS. The official position is that you'll die from fake of low quality drugs. This has not happened to me yet, though I don't use inhalers.

I generally find that my dogs get much better service at the vets than I do at the doctors. I wish there were more private doctors about but the NHS has something of a monopoly.

You won't like the size uf US style medical bills.

[LiveinHope]

If I'm right, you live in a rural spot. Can't the cats live outside in a shed or outhouse ? They'll be fine and look much healthier with much better coats, and you'll have no rodents and only need some dried food and water left out - makes going away easy too.

[Mr. Miyagi]

Would you not be importing a controlled drug into the U.K and potentially committing a criminal offence?

[whitevanman]

You won't like the size uf US style medical bills.

The US system is a statist nightmare. I really don't see why a doctor's visit should cost anymore than a vet's. Technology has made every other industry more efficient and cheaper but (human) healthcare costs keep ballooning. If you visit the docs somewhere like Thailand it's a different story, good care and cheap prices.

I'm fed up with being made to feel like a beggar when I visit a UK doctor.

To the OP, a ventolin inhaler seems to cost about £20 online or around £100 for six. Hth

[CunningPlan]

Ventolin is a total rip off in the UK. You can buy it over the counter in Portugal for about 3.50 euros - but in the UK it is controlled so you have to pay a huge amount for a prescription. I have always thought that the reason it is controlled is because it is one of the few drugs the NHS can make a vast profit on.

I used to get mine from a place in Vanuatu called www.inhousedrugstore.biz. $100 for 8. Delivery about 2 weeks (and it is the proper product!) However, I have found a source in the UK - www.medical-specialists.co.uk. You answer a few online questions and get a private prescription from them. Cost is £30 for four inhalers. You are able to reorder very easily but they do control how often you can order.

Hope that helps.

[stormymonday_2011]

Have you considered an annual NHS prescription prepayment certificate.

https://apps.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ppcwebsales/patient.do

If you have more than one prescription item a month it is generally worth the cost.

Also the size of the batch of drugs depends what you get on the doctors prescription in the UK. Sympathetic doctors usually give patients a couple of months supply if you ask nicely which reduces the cost.

Anyone who thinks UK Vets bills are cheaper than using the NHS for prescriptions either does not have pets or has animals that never get ill.

[CunningPlan]

Ventolin is a total rip off in the UK. You can buy it over the counter in Portugal for about 3.50 euros - but in the UK it is controlled so you have to pay a huge amount for a prescription. I have always thought that the reason it is controlled is because it is one of the few drugs the NHS can make a vast profit on.

I used to get mine from a place in Vanuatu called www.inhousedrugstore.biz. $100 for 8. Delivery about 2 weeks (and it is the proper product!) However, I have found a source in the UK - www.medical-specialists.co.uk. You answer a few online questions and get a private prescription from them. Cost is £30 for four inhalers. You are able to reorder very easily but they do control how often you can order.

Hope that helps.

Correction - the vanuatu one is now www.inhousepharmacy.vu

[interestrateripoff]

I thought US drug prices where crazy which is why they nip over to Canada for cheaper drugs? Surely the US is the most expensive market on the planet to buy drugs.

[SarahBell]

I have to have a Ventolin inhaler for asthma.

My asthma is triggered by our cats and pretty much nothing else. It's "allergic adult onset asthma".

It isn't serious. Though asthma can potentially be fatal (Stuart Baggs for example) I haven't had what I'd call an asthma attack since I was about 6. But I have to have one of these inhalers in the house even though I can go days without using it.

Anyway, I've had it with the NHS prescriptions and the NHS generally. It is so haphazard I must find an alternative.

Private prescriptions involve travelling to Reading, about 25 miles, to the Bupa centre, they no longer do these in Guildford. This becomes a pain for repeat prescriptions which this is.

Ordering online in the UK is 1. relatively expensive and 2. seems to still require a doctor's prescription.

I can order online from outside the UK without a prescription. This involves buying in bulk, some of them will expire before use, so it's also expensive. On the other hand, it means I can avoid the NHS entirely which is the objective.

Does anyone have experience with ordering this or other medicine from overseas, especially the US?

Ask your GP at your annual asthma review how many inhalers they can give you on one prescription (one charge then).

How many do you have a year?

Husband doesn't use his as often as he should. He's had the allergen tests and the asthma nurse was quite amazed he actually does anything on seeing the results as they are way off the chart.

We won't be replacing the cat when she dies. She's 16 but someone cheerily told me their cat lived to 27.

[CunningPlan]

Re the cat allergy - I am allergic to almost every animal - cat, dog, horse, cow, budgie etc. The ONLY animal I have yet found that I can even be in the same room with is a greyhound or a lurcher. Apparently this is very common. It is very rare to be allergic to a greyhound. Therefore, anyone that thought they could not have a pet due to allergies get yourself a rescue greyhound - www.grwe.com or greyhound gap etc. They are also the most bone idle, fantastic dogs to have in the home.

[Flopsy]

I buy prescription drugs from abroad regularly and use this site.

http://www.alldaychemist.com/ventorlin-cfc-free-inhaler.html

Unfortunately they do have a hefty delivery charge of $15 or $25. It does seem to vary a bit.

You also need to be aware that you can be charged UK customs duty on top of any purchases from abroad if Royal Mail see that it isn't a present

Have you tried any type of de-sensitisation program for your cat allergy?

This one is private and I've not tried it.

http://breakspearmedical.com/treatments/pet-allergies/

This Hospital offers EPD and is through the NHS

http://www.nhs.uk/services/hospitals/overview/defaultview.aspx?id=1820

[Mark Uttley]

The usual treatment for pet allergy is antihistamines, not Ventolin inhaler. If you're having difficulty obtaining a prescription for Ventolin then it's probably because your doctor thinks that the drug is inappropriate. You could try changing doctor.

Unfortunately, the real answer is to not have cats. Maybe your doctor just doesn't like them.

[DTMark]

I had asthma as a child, and had to be rushed to hospital once after an attack when very young.

This went away when I was about 14 - I was lucky. Sadly, after bronchitis aged around 26 it came back.

Except that this type of asthma is very much milder. It is never extreme nor always present, it's just mildly annoying and easily treated. It is not "wheezing" asthma, more like a sense of thickening of the bronchial passages so it's just that little bit harder to breathe. Again I'm quite lucky compared with others.

Acrivastine is the best antihistamine as it has the fewest side effects but only lasts about 3 hours, Cetirizine lasts a bit longer and is more potent but has more side effects. Both of these will prevent or stop this type of asthma but it is not a continuous dose.

I've had a repeat prescription for Ventolin and Seretide since I was 26. This was done electronically at first when we moved here, but that system is so flawed and goes wrong so often I gave up with it and asked the doctor to revert back to the paper copies collected from the practice. I thought I could collect that, pop next door, pick up the stuff, walk back into the practice and drop the repeat part in the box. Basically, not delegate any part of the process to anyone.

Only that doesn't work because the prescription is denied as they're "too close together". Apparently, also, someone had an episode with Ventolin fairly recently, so you're not allowed to have two at any one time. This is a recent tightening up of the rules. The other point about these things: you cannot tell when they will run out since it is a near weightless gas in a closed canister with no meter on it.

I also get dragged back to the doctor's surgery once a year to answer a series of personal questions and have this checked. When that's due, all prescriptions are denied until I go. I see why this is so. It's just annoying not least because the last appointment lead time I had was nearly a month. I can go private but that involves a trek to Reading - that's where I'd go if I had "something wrong with me" to see a GP.

The last time I went to get the prescription - no prescription again. This condition has never got any worse and with the cats probably won't get any better: though, it may. I just want to extricate myself from the NHS altogether and just order a big multi pack of them myself.

I am impatient, yes, as probably comes across, but there have been so many wasted trips and aggravation now that this leads me to think "there must be a better way".

Though yes, I suppose it's a "controlled drug" which means it could be problematic - I assume that imports would be labelled "medicine"?

I shall check out the links and have a browse around later, thanks.

[Mark Uttley]

Many surgeries are switching to electronic prescriptions. Ask a local pharmacy if they do them. They'll be happy to sort out the ordering for you. You'll still have to have your annual review though.

Overuse of salbutamol is quite a problem for the NHS. Patients do it because they get immediate relief and don't like using the steroid inhalers. The problem is that they are far more likely to have a severe attack this way and end up as a hospital admission.

The Seretide inhalers are really expensive, whereas the salbutamol (Ventolin) only cost a couple of quid to the NHS, so it's not a cost thing.

[Solitaire]

If you need a ventolin inhaler to tide you over till you sort something out DTMark, I have a stash and could send you one.

PM me if you want one.

[DTMark]

If you need a ventolin inhaler to tide you over till you sort something out DTMark, I have a stash and could send you one.

PM me if you want one.

That's a really lovely, generous offer - thank you.

I do actually have the prescription now. Well, two of them in fact. The one they didn't have the last time, and the one they then ordered. They "found" both when I went in yesterday. So ironically, I will now be able to collect two in one go.

[Solitaire]

You're welcome. Glad you've got it sorted for now.

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

I'm disappointed that in two pages of posts no-one has tried to convince me inhalers are a mind control drug invented by Big Pharma to try to increase profits.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

I'm disappointed that in two pages of posts no-one has tried to convince me inhalers are a mind control drug invented by Big Pharma to try to increase profits.

Well it's probably about time somebody did!

Here's Why Your Asthma Inhaler Costs So Damn Much

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/10/heres-why-your-asthma-inhaler-costs-so-damn-much

' Here's the short version of the story: as Saunders says, albuterol is a cheap medication because it went off patent long ago. Then, a few years ago, as part of the campaign to eliminate CFCs and save the ozone layer, CFC-based inhalers were set to be banned. Pharmaceutical companies took advantage of this to design new delivery systems and surround them with a thicket of patents. As a result, even though albuterol itself might be off patent, only name-brand asthma inhalers are available—and since there's now no generic competition the big pharmaceutical companies are free to jack up prices to their heart's content. And they have. After all, as Rosenthal points out, this isn't like acne medicine that you can do without if it costs too much. If you have asthma, you need an inhaler, period. Is your blood boiling? Well, wait a bit. The story is actually even worse than this.

You're probably thinking that what happened here is (a) overzealous environmentalists insisted on banning CFC inhalers even though they don't really have much impact on the ozone layer, and ( pharmaceutical companies cleverly took advantage of this to suck some extra money out of asthma sufferers. Well, the ozone layer was the initial cause of all this, so feel free to place some of the blame on environmentalists if you like. But as it turns out, scientists raised some early concerns about the inhaler ban because the replacement for CFCs was a powerful greenhouse gas. So they suggested that maybe it was better just to make an exception for asthma inhalers and let well enough alone. At that point, the pharmaceutical companies that had been eagerly waiting for the old inhalers to be banned went on the offensive. Nick Baumann picks up the story from there:

The pharma consortium transformed from primarily an R&D outfit searching for substitutes for CFC-based inhalers into a lobbying group intent on eliminating the old inhalers. It set up shop in the K Street offices of Drinker Biddle, a major DC law firm. Between 2005 and 2010, it spent $520,000 on lobbying. (It probably spent even more; as a trade group, it's not required to disclose all of its advocacy spending.) Meanwhile, IPAC lobbied for other countries to enact similar bans, arguing that CFC-based inhalers should be eliminated for environmental reasons and replaced with the new, HFC-based inhalers.

The lobbying paid off. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an outright ban on many CFC-based inhalers starting in 2009. This June, the agency's ban on Aerobid, an inhaler used for acute asthma, took effect. Combivent, another popular treatment, will be phased out by the end of 2013.

In other words, pharmaceutical companies didn't just take advantage of this situation, they actively worked to create this situation. Given the minuscule impact of CFC-based inhalers on the ozone layer, it's likely that an exception could have been agreed to if pharmaceutical companies hadn't lobbied so hard to get rid of them. The result is lower-quality inhalers and fantastically higher profits for Big Pharma. '