Hi Jenny,
You've got my prayers coming your way. When we fell on very hard times, getting maintenance medications became an issue for us, too. We lost our health insurance, and I ended up getting thyroid medications for my DH from another country. The great thing was, we didn't need a prescription, and after checking the US import laws, I knew we were fine on getting it for him (as long as it's not a controlled substance and for personal use only and in an amount not greater than 3 months supply, you can get it). It takes a month for them to come in on average, but they can cost a lot less than American meds, even if you get a European brand name. Most places charge a flat shipping fee of $15, but you can find places where shipping costs less if you shop around.
The way to find out European med names is to go to
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and look up your med. Get the generic name, and then do a search on Google or Yahoo for the generic name "xxxx without a prescription". This should get you the sites that bounce you to many pharmacy sites, and they'll list a lot of the European brand names of the med you need. Then, you start looking for the med under the Euro name. For instance, levothyroxine is the generic name of Synthroid, and looking for that turned up Eltroxin as a big Euro brand name, and that's what we got. They didn't have the exact strength he takes, so we got one we could cut the pills up to make up the extra amount he needed.
We've had nothing but good results with pharmacies overseas. The meds come in factory sealed packages, not the amber bottles you get at the pharmacy, and the first shipment reassured me of the manufacturer, because I recognized it as one that's big in the US.
The real kicker is this: We didn't need a prescription because it's legal to get it over the counter in the country it came from, so we weren't socked with hundreds in unnecessary doctor visit fees, AND his
3 month supply of his med cost the same as 1 month supply co-pay if we had gotten it in the US through an insurance plan! I still make him get his blood tested once a year, but you don't need a doctor's order to get it or have to pay a doctor's office fee or wait for hours to see them for less than 5 minutes and pay the hundreds they want in fees just to say, yes, you still need your med.
If you go this route, I'd make sure to check your BF's blood pressure for free inside a store on a regular basis, and still see the doctor after starting the meds just to make sure everything's all right. Just give the generic name when they ask what med he's taking. Most US docs don't know Euro med names.
BTW, watch out for a bait and switch. Some online pharmacies will sell you a med for a reasonable price, but when you go back to re-order, they will TRIPLE the cost. That happened to us the first time we ordered from a "Mexican" pharmacy. The first shipment of meds actually came from India, but were factory sealed, and were not out of date, so we were happy with them. But, when we went back to reorder, the $30 med had shot up to $95! We had no problem going to a different pharmacy, so that one company just shot itself in the foot, thinking we weren't going to check the amount they wanted to charge on the order page before re-ordering!
HTH!
Leah