One thing that I find difficult to get used to is the different pain medicines here in this country and so I used to always stock up when going back to the UK.

But lockdown... and so after alot of searching, I have found that Amavita sells Nurofen! Yeah!

You can get generics much cheaper even in CH

Nurofen is ibuprofen, it’s available without a prescription in every pharmacy.

This.

I suggest you search by ibuprofen rather than searching by brand.

Just don't make the rookie mistake I did: Pronounce ibupropfen the German way EEEEbuprophen, not EYEbuprofen, otherwise you might be told it's not sold in Switzerland.


A head-scratcher I've recently come across:

I can buy as much 500mg aspirin as I like OTC - but low dose 100mg aspirin requires a prescription.

Is it Friday?

I find it genuinely astonishing how many people still don't realise that their known-brand OTC drugs are exactly the same as the, usually much cheaper, generic versions universally available.

I always felt it was mostly an American thing, but I'm no longer sure that's true, based on decades of exposure to advertising - maybe it's just that from this side of the pond we're more likely to notice when they just refer to Tylenol or Advil, given that those are US-specific names - then again it used to be common enough in the UK to say Anadin and Panadol, but I don't think that's the case any more.

I recall having a discussion just a few years ago with some people who were still convinced that getting the branded products was still worthwhile, claiming that generics were creating side-effects that didn't occur with the branded product. Sheer delusion, but a marketeer's dream.

Isn’t every day Friday on EF.

It’s because low dose aspirin is used for specific medical reasons.

A while back there was a recommendation (since revised) that everyone should take a low dose aspirin per day as it had long term health benefits and suddenly loads of people started taking them. It became more difficult to buy the otc in the UK after that although they are still available otc.
I take them and have a prescription for them but pre-covid I would stock up on them on trips back to the UK as it still worked out cheaper than the 10% co-pay here and that’s assuming I’d reached my franchise already.

Also the number of pills. Otc is limited to 16 pills while under prescription there is no limit.

Low dose aspirin isn’t limited to 16 in the UK. You can get the tubs of 100 OTC but you have to ask the pharmacist for it, you can’t just pick it up off the shelf. You also usually have to explain why you’re buying it.

The other 'clever' thing they did was make several variations of the product available to treat specific types of pain - headache, or back pain, or period pain.

All had exactly the same active ingredient - ibuprofen 200mg but the packaging is different.

Apologies I wasn’t referring to the UK

When he told me to start taking it my GP apparently didn't know low dose aspirin required a prescription; he said I could pick it up from any Apotheke. So I was surprised when I found I couldn't - and somewhat annoyed that I had to go back to the GP for a prescription. So add in the cost of the extra visit, plus the Apotheke's handling charge... that's mightly expensive aspirin.

Low dose aspirin is available OTC in any US pharmacy - heck, even in grocery stores. (Walgreens generic price for 81mg aspirin: 500 count for a whopping $8.49.)



Off topic, but to add insult to injury: I took a peek at the pharmacy site to check the price, and on the landing page the headliner is "COVID-19 vaccines are ready and so is Walgreens. Schedule your free vaccination today." That sound you hear is me, sighing enviously.

If only those were the worst marketing people hahaha.

In home country (Mexico) there's a thriving industry of adding cheap and abundant diclofenac and ibuprofen to health supplements and attribute the perceived positive outcome to any natural plant or animal part. People want to believe in nature, producers oblige. Funny thing that neighbors in the North also want to believe https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/n...mofan/2843161/

My father is one of those that believe that if the label in the bottle says it's a plant extract and his back pain alleviated after by a pill, the plant is miraculous. Then he's happy to rant about those capitalistic chemical pharma companies I worried at first, then read about diclofenac in natural health supplements and we just agreed to avoid overindulging in natural products, too much of a plant can bad too.

Does this type of business exists also on this side of the Atlantic? Natural health supplements loaded enriched cheap painkillers?

Yes, that was, IIRC, outlawed a few years back, first in Australia, my memory says. _Some_ of their targetted ones do/did indeed contain other ingredients, like caffeine, even codeine, so they built on that as a branding exercise.

There were also some with different coatings, some in capsules, some gel or liquid form, all part of the attempt both to make people want to buy multiple versions of the same thing and to persuade then that this brand is more innovative than all the other 'ordinary' ones.

TBF some of the generics I've had have been completely uncoated and can be quite difficult for me to swallow, particularly in the 400mg tabs. My preferred form is the bottles of 1000*200mg you can buy in Walgreens or other US supermarkets for under US$30. More recently I've found some online suppliers in Belgium who will ship in reasonable quantities (and prices) to our French address.

Pretty sure it's not allowed in the EU (or UK or CH). Some countries only allow even OTC painkillers to be sold in a pharmacy, and quantities are severely limited by pack size and maximum per-person quotas. Selling it disguised as supplements in a "healthfood" shop would break the rules in several different ways.

And is, let's face it, a terrible idea. Potential overdose scenarios spring to mind, where someone uses both their supplements and maximum dose of OTC drugs unaware that they contain the same thing.

OH, a very experienced medic tried many times to explain this to a close relative - to no avail. Still 100% sure that only Nurofen works better than ibuprofen - probably the placebo effect of the x 4 cost.

If you told them it was discovered by scientists working for Boots the Chemist, the cheap one from Boots will be as good as you can get.
https://www.boots.com/floating-edito...y-of-ibuprofen

You couldn't get the pharmacist to call the Dr and ask them to fax through a prescription?