For those who don't know, I'm ex-patriating out of the US in the next two weeks. I've been trying to get my @#$%& together and of course, life being life, @#$%& happens. I'm wading through health insurance and prescription stuff right now. I found out my insurance company denied my vacation override but didn't tell me. A vacation override is what you request to fill multiple months' prescriptions at once in order to buy your meds at the insured rate before a vacation. I tried to do mine for the full year I'll be away before returning again in December 2015.

The bastards are so shady. I'll call them on Monday to contest it. If I were to pay for my main medication out of pocket it would cost $400/month which is $100 more per month than it cost six months ago. I currently pay $70/month for it through insurance.

I may have to go through Canadian pharmacies to get it. Do y'all have any safe favourites? According to this recent NYT article [well.blogs.nytimes.com] one should look for certain types of pharmacies:

Quote

Last year, Mr. Bate and his colleagues published a study analyzing 372 orders of five popular prescription drugs – Lipitor, Celebrex, @#$%&, Nexium and Zoloft – that they purchased from 79 domestic and foreign online drug outlets. Products bought from Canadian or other foreign sites certified by C.I.P.A. or PharmacyChecker.com were of high quality. So were products ordered from American sites verified by either the N.A.B.P. or LegitScript.com, a certification agency founded by a former White House aide on drug policy issues.

But that was not the case for sites that were not certified by any of these four groups. Many of the drugs they sold were fakes, including about a quarter of the @#$%& samples, which largely appeared to have originated in China.

Anyway, for the original question: do any of y'all buy meds online and which ones do you trust? I might go with Big Mountain Drugs [www.bigmountaindrugs.com] for my main medication because they sell it for $159 for a month's supply vs. $400.

I hate this kind of stuff.

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trisho.
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Official Card-Carrying Mother Earthin' Sl*t.

I've used CanadaPharmacyOnline.com without any problems. Drugs manufactured in India and shipped from Switzerland.

Not sure about Canadian on-line pharmacies, but found out this summer that a Canadian Pharmacy can only fill a script that was written by a Canadian Doc.

Did you research whether you can get them where you are going? Many Rx drugs in the USA are OTC in other countries. And, it may be less expensive. Otherwise, you can may be able to go to a doc and get an Rx. You prolly thought of this, but just an FYI.

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Hurts like a bastid...

tronnei, thanks for the hook up.

mrbigstuff, I started thinking about it and I'll go digging through some ex-pat forums to ask questions. I think the ones for London/England may prove to be useful for now. I'm planning on getting full ex-pat travel insurance that covers prescriptions too, so now I'm wondering if I should only bother getting a 6 month supply from the US before I go? What would you guys do?

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trisho.
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Official Card-Carrying Mother Earthin' Sl*t.

Hm, who will you be working for and how will they be paying you?

Initially I thought you'd be paying uk taxes and have uk health insurance.

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Agreed, check with the country of destination to see if you qualify for Rx and other coverage. Pain medication (narcotics), and often as well antibiotics, are hard to come by OTC but many other drugs are available OTC so definitely check in your destination country to see if the OTC route may be the way to go. Also, be aware that you are at risk of medicine seizure and your incarceration for importing too much of certain drugs. Check before you go. It may be worth your while to travel back to the USA to your closest pharmacy branch for refills every 90 days.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

I use Canadadrugs.com for some OTC stuff that's cheaper in Canada than the US. I've checked their prices on RX drugs and they seem cheaper.
Probably would be better to just get new prescriptions from your doc and fill them after you arrive in Canada. US precriptions are accepted by Canadadrugs.com

I have used
[www.adv-care.com]
and
[www.canadadrugsonline.com]

with no problems.

Hey guys, sorry for the late response. I couldn't access the forum for the last 12 hours or so. It just wouldn't load in multiple browsers.

Quote
mattkime
Hm, who will you be working for and how will they be paying you?

Initially I thought you'd be paying uk taxes and have uk health insurance.

I'm being paid by an American company and I'm not eligible for NHS. I'll have to go through private care doctors but the pricing still doesn't seem too bad.

richorlin and pipeens thanks for those store references. I just emailed my accountant to ask if drugs bought from a Canadian pharmacy are still tax-deductible or not.

I eventually dug around expat forums for a few hours Saturday night and discovered that I should have my doctors write a letter with the brand name and the chemical names of my meds so I can give those to the doctors in the other countries. For my two less expensive meds, I think I may just buy a 12 month supply outright as they're pretty cheap. But, I'll try to get a 90-day vacation override for my main one and then fill the prescription as quickly as possible when I get to London.

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trisho.
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Official Card-Carrying Mother Earthin' Sl*t.