When I was travelling regularly to the US, I’d bring back tubs with 500 ibuprofen tablets in it.
Now I’m not travelling much for work any more, I’m trying to figure out how to get more. The online sites either request you have a prescription or ask you to come into a pharmacy (where they will sell only 20 tablets at a time).
Anyone got recommendations for getting Ibuprofen (preferably Optifen - because it tastes good!) esp. if it can be ordered easily online?
If it is very restricted in Switzerland, since I live in Basel, I could potentially pop over the border to buy in German or France if easier.
Went to the local pharmacy for now. They would only sell me 10 for a price at which I could have bought 125 online!
I don’t quiet understand, shouldn’t you easily get a prescription from your dentist in the current situation?
The other version is to order online and have it delivered to a Paketshop in Germany, don’t you already have such an address abroad as you live in Basel?
I have a big tub of them my friend brought back from the US which I will never use. You’re welcome to them if you want them. I can post them to you.
It’s just a huge faff. I have to make an appointment, take 40 minutes to go the dentist and back, pay for the dentist time and parking. Then go to the pharmacy. Pay through the nose for a small packet that will at best last 1 week so I then have to repeat the process again when it runs out.
No it’s not. You call the dentist, tell them you’re still in pain, ran out of painkillers, please send the prescription via email to pharmacy such-and-such and pick the tablets up at exactly that pharmacy. And ask him for a big box. Simples, really.
Anyway, get better soon.
In France they’re much cheaper (a few euros) but I’m not sure a package contains more than 12 or 20 pieces or if they sell more than one…btw they used to be quite liberal with the over-the-counter medicines but things might have changed in the last few years.
When I go back to the UK, I pick up a couple of boxes for a few pence every time I go to a supermarket or anywhere else that sells them.
Yeah, in the UK they have become more restrictive with paracetamol to try to prevent overdose accidents. I like to stock up on stuff such as kids calpol sachets as they like the taste of those and they can just have a single sachet which is equivalent to a single 5ml spoonful.
Here they seem to be sold in large bottles so if you only give them a spoon, you end up throwing away the rest of the bottle.
In Germany you do not need a prescription for 200mg and 400mg and they are very cheap.
Amazon sell a huge variety of Ibuprofen packs without prescription, for example, 24 400mg for euro 8 or 50 400 mg for euro 5. These do not deliver to Switzerland so you would need a German delivery address.
The reason the EU and CH/UK restict the number of painkillers is because not only will an intentional overdose not kill anyone it will do serious damage to internal organs.
If you want to kill yourself don’t do it with aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen it’s not going to work and you could end up on dialysis forever.
Yes, I know, we are all reasonable adults here. But we may not be the only ones with access to our medicine cabinets.
I know, I have thrown away a lot of this stuff because once you open the bottle you can’t keep it for too long.
Yup. It is important that they have child-proof bottles and preferably locked away somewhere.
I put them high up in a cupboard the kids can’t reach, but I will need to secure this better as they get more resourceful (e.g. getting stools to climb up).
I had my stomach contents pumped out in hospital as a small child as my older brother and sister decided to feed me the contents of the medicine cabinet.
To be fair to by parents, everything was normally locked away but it was all out ready to be packed as we were moving abroad.
My mum was iron-deficient, and we kids were not allowed sweeties. One day when I was 5, I took all her iron pills, with their lovely mint-green sugar coating, and sucked all the sugar off until I got to the incredibly bitter centre. Her lesson learned.
There are numerous side-effects from long-term and excessive Ibuprofen use…
I’ve been using them regularly for years for chronic pain following a severe trauma, which has lead to fibromyalgia. My usage these days is more like a couple of pills in the night every few nights when I can’t sleep, but there was quite a long period when I was on 3*600 a day. The main possible side-effect with most NSAIDs is gastric problems, but in all that time I’ve never had issue, and certainly not any of the others listed which are much less common. In other words, looking at the label in detail will always list loads of things, but should not usually put you off using them. Ibuprofen is a very safe drug indeed…
As for buying them, yes, they can be ordered online within the EU, typically from Belgium. Still in blister packs but you can get the price down to more reasonable levels, and while there is a limit to numbers of packs at any one time it’s not very restrictive. ISTR once being queried by a UK online pharmacy and just explaining that I had a valid reason and knew what I was doing, but since then I’ve bought them again without any questions. And the limit is separately applied to 400mg and 200mg, so you can get both in one go if you like.
Prices will never match the Walgreen’s bottles of 1000 for around 25 dollars (last time I looked, I’ve still got some left in the last jar from there) but they’re a fraction of what you pay for the little bitty packs you can buy in Switzerland.
Paracetamol oral liquid can be frozen - not the same as Ibuprofen but perhaps a similar form is available, too. My guess is that, conveniently, it keeps for much longer that way. And the children may be much less likely to check the freezer.
The general advice is to not freeze pills unless you’re given clear instructions to that end.
I doubt that very much. Parents out? Let’s go for the ice-cream.
Plus; Hey, never seen that one before.