Hi,

I have a chronic condition (thyroid) that required me to take some medication every day. In the States I have just a prescription from my doctor, usually for a year or more, and it is filles automatically in the pharmacy once a month. When I need to renew the prescription, a simple call to the doctor takes care of it.

Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation while moving to Switzerland? I am almost certain that a Swiss pharmacy won't consider my American prescription and will send me to see a doctor. But when I do and see the doctor, shall I expect a battery of tests, or (if I do not want the tests) he can just write the prescription I need? I am actually not sure if my medicine is available in Switzerland but this is another story... I might consider very small deductible for the medical insurance if the tests are inevitable

Any help or tips are appreciated!

Marvin

You can get a repeat presciption from a doctor and the chemist will remind you to renew it after it's a year old. First visit to the doc will probably get you the once-over.

You can then request this from your quack over the phone.

It's quite civilised over here, you know. Running water and electricity are becoming quite common

If you don't have a GP, you can get an appointment at the Permanence. Don't go for the drop in service unless you are prepared to wait two hours (ok, they let you go out and wander nowadays, they didn't use to).

A non-emergency appointment with a general practitioner should set you back 150 Francs max, you then get a "repetatur" prescription, meaning you can go and get more without the appointment.

Alternatively, befriend a med student from the third year upwards, they can prescribe anything they want. Obviously not the sensible/correct way to do it but if you know what you need and your situation is stable, it's a viable choice.

The best thing to do is ask your current doctor to provide you with photocopies copies of your medical records over the past few years, including copies of the results of the various tests I assume you've had during the diagnosis and management of your condition. This will be enormously helpful for the doctors you see in Switzerland so they can have a complete view of your medical history and better monitor your condition, and will also save you the necessity of having to undergo repeat testing.

A phone call to the secretary in you current doctor's office should do the trick. They may charge you a small administrative fee, but it's certainly worth it.

HeatherM

Thank you for all your replies. When I worked for hapf a year in Scotland, the GP there insisted I did all the tests again (although I did have a couple of years of medical history copied from US), and it too soooo much time there... It seems that it was an aberration.

Thanks again for your replies, Marvin

Hi Marvin,

Another thought is to ask your current doctor if he/she would be willing to act as a sort of 'medical reference' for you if necessary. I've learned from experience that when switching between doctors, it can be quite helpful to have the new one speak to the old one by phone if they need to clarify anything about your medical condition. It's much more time and cost efficient than repeat testing.

HeatherM

BTW, I have a thyroid problem too and all they tend to worry about is getting you blood checked so that you don't have too high a dosage. The medication is very cheap too, at least Levothyroxine based stuff is.

So no worries, you'll be fine.

If you know what drug you need it should be easy enough to get it off line. There are pharmacies that are legit and offer common drugs at fair prices.

Also I know in Belgium the chemist can give you anything he or she wants without a script, not sure if it's the same in Switzerland

Would not recommend this! !

Please see the link below:

http://www.spamtrackers.eu/wiki/inde...le=Leo_Kuvayev

What does a spammer got to do with anything?

Hmm, something to do with the 1000's of fake pharma sites this guy and his friends set up to harvest credit card info. Considering that in his absence he was convicted and fined 37 million USD I would say he was fairly good at it.

But hey it's up to you if you want to give your credit card details to people like this or run the risk of receiving 'drugs' made up of various houshold chemicals.

Well there are legit on-line pharmacies. You get the same drugs just usually from a different company.

There are tons of rip off sites, but real ones do exsit

Yes there are, but the problem is for the average user to identify which site is legit.