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Can I get antibiotics without an RX?


Posted: Sep 12, 2016

I used to use inhousepharmacy but they're now asking for an RX to be faxed or mailed in.  

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Messing Around - With Antibiotics

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You shouldn't be using antibiotics without a Rx from a U.S. medical doctor or qualified R.N. People using antibiotics willy-nilly are causing bacteria to get smarter. And, they're bad for you if you don't know how to take them. You can rebound which is worse than the original infection.

So, obviously a doc doesn't want to give them to you for good reason.

You obviously are a moron. - .

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.

Why is poster a moron? - nm

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?
From The Moron - LOL
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I'm guessing I'm a moron because she doesn't care that incorrect use of antibiotics can be ultimately deadly to all, and I called her on that.
Not the OP, and I do agree in principle - SLM
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with you about indiscriminate use of antibiotics. However, my husband frequently gets pinkeye and the only thing that fixes it is antibiotic eye drops. With his long history of this, he knows exactly what is going on and what will work. Once he went to a new doc who said it was probably viral and suggested treating it with heat compresses. He tried this for a miserable week but ended up having to go to another doc to get the antibiotics that always work quickly for him. All of these trips to the doctor when he knows exactly what is going on are expensive. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge this person without really knowing his/her story.
I think it's more likely you're a moron for making all kinds - sm
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of unwarranted assumptions - starting with assuming this person doesn't know incorrect use of antibiotics produces problems.

My guess is that she is well aware of this and quite possibly more likely to use them correctly than the average patient paying for an office visit. After all, she's obviously smarter than the average bear since she's figured out how to treat her ills without bankrupting herself to pad the pockets of the medical establishment.

Antibiotics - sm

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I work inhouse at a hospital and use the pharmacy for all meds with payroll deduction. They're just like any other pharmacy...they require a prescription from an MD, PA, or NP for any drug that's not OTC. When any Rx expires, they absolutely will not refill without a formal signed order via fax or mail. They really show no mercy to employees when it comes to prescriptions (i.e., refilling early because you'll be on vacation, etc.).

yes - you can

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search and you can find one, usually from Canada or India. sky-pharmacy-online.com is one. I used them twice. My sister buys from them because in America they want too much money. She has a prescription, but they do not require one. She pays about 100 dollars, Walmart wants 600 dollars for her medicine, which she cannot afford. Don't judge on that one people.

you can tske - fish antibiotics.

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I was reading a police mystery 2 weeks ago and the main character opted for fish antibiotics so as not to delay working a case. This was news to me and I researched whether or not that was possible. It does seem possible but it is an individual decision. The best information was on a survivor site and I found it to be objective and informative, but they did not endorse it to the readers. This was for ampicillin.

I don't know whether or not I would make that choice but a doomsday disaster would probably influence my choice!

I have long kept a few vet antibiotics on hand for emergencies. - sm

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Yes, taking the wrong antibiotic or one you don't need is a bad idea. Yes, taking them incorrectly leads to resistant organisms.

OTOH, there are some other facts to consider.

The biggest problem with antibiotic resistance is not the ones people take, but the tons and tons fed to farm animals kept in such unhealthy conditions that massive doses of antibiotics are the only way to keep them alive.

Many doctors prescribe antibiotics for conditions they won't actually help just because their patients expect a prescription, and many people stop taking prescribed antibiotics too soon, creating resistant organisms. It's not the minority of people ordering antibiotics without a prescription that are the biggest problem.

Most docs also prescribe antibiotics empirically, based on what usually works for the symptoms they're seeing rather than performing and waiting for a lab culture. Every hospital hands its house officers a little booklet of what to prescribe empirically for what conditions based on nothing but the odds. And that's how they are usually prescribed, at least for the 1st round tried. It's a cookbook that anyone could follow.

Given the expense of doctor's visits and the cost of many antibiotics in this country, it is absolutely reasonable for an intelligent person to buy them less expensively overseas and use them according to the same empiric rules the doctors follow. It's just less profitable for the doctors and big Pharma.

I've used my antibiotic stash exactly 3 times in the last 20 years. It saved my bacon and my budget all 3 times. What I have is cheap enough that I can have it on hand and replace what outdates for less than what even one urgent care visit would have cost me.

I'll start feeling guilty about those 3 courses of "illegal" antibiotics when docs stop prescribing unneeded antibiotics, when stupid patients stop taking them as soon as they feel better, and most importantly, when they are banned for routine use on farm animals just to boost profits.

Thank you and the other posters for being the voice of reason - see message

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Assuming anything of someone's situation is never productive.
It's the medical establishment that has lost all reason. - sm
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I was just reading another article today on the insane prices of care inflicted on people in this country--because they have us, or think they have us, over a barrel.

You are absolutely right - kept a few for myself too

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I used to breed parrots and had a certified facility, so I was inspected by the veterinarian I used and had a close working relationship with him. I kept vials of antibiotics on hand because birds can go down in 24 hours. Sometimes there was no time to get them to a vet, and after a certain period of time working with them, I was as astute at diagnosing and treating them as he was. I even did my own necropsy and took him pathology slides if I was uncertain about anything. He would give me a new bottle of antibiotics every 12 months. In my case because there were children in my home, I always returned my unfinished vials of antibiotics, but I should have been forward thinking and done the same as you. These were human grade products and cost a fraction of what I would have had to pay in a pharmacy. In fact, they were THE SAME pharmaceuticals as in the pharmacy without the greater expense. We live in a litigious world and doctors and pharmacists want profits and safeguards in place to keep their dollars.

p.s. probiotics will help you mantain a healthy immune - system too

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I tend to have an acidic gut as I consume a large amount of fruits (pineapple, oranges, etc). This disrupts the alkaline balance in my gut and makes it hard for me to keep good bacteria, so I have taken probiotics for years to maintain a healthy GI tract. If your GI tract is healthy, the better able you are to fight unwelcome bacteria in your entire body.

and PREbiotics as well! - nm

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x
Or you could just eat right and save the money you are spending - sm
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on probiotics, prebiotics, etc.

In any case, when you get an infection in spite of precautions/healthy living, you may need an antibiotic, and without having to shell out for a doctor's visit first and then pay the inflated US drug prices.
Agree - They Do Not Understand
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I know 3 people who are taking these whatever they are for digestive health. They have all started having worse problems than when they started.

Here's the deal. Your intestines have natural flora and fauna, if you will, as well as the correct balance of good bacteria and bad bacteria. By using these types of products, you are upsetting nature.

And don't even talk to me about high colonics. Your intestines have mucus lining all the intestines--we know this, we're MTs. Mucus lines many organs, and it's designed to PROTECT them from toxins and antigens, including cancer cells. In a high colonic, you are scraping away this protective mucus.

So, forget the clean-out--with the exception of a regular colonoscopy according to your doc's recommendation. There's not a competent medical doctor who is going to tell you a routine high colonic is good for anything, and in fact, could ultimately be harmful.

Stop messing with your body with all this "stuff." Most of it has not even been tested for efficacy or safety. Our bodies do what they do. Nature has set it up that way.

And I agree with the poster who said not to overuse antibiotics. Do you know MRSA? Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. It became methicillin resistant because of over use of the antibiotic. Bacteria are extremely smart in finding their way around antibiotics, and it's a danger to society for doctors to over-prescribe them.
now that you let out all that hot air, - feel better now?
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I do eat a healthy diet. This is the first time in my life I have been able to eat the suggested servings of fruit on a daily basis for more than a week at a time. I have a quick acting gut. Almost 15 years ago when I tried to lose weight (15 pounds) and enjoyed the summer's bounty of fruit, I ended up with colitis and was on medication that cost $800 a month for three years. After those three years, I switched to probiotics and my diarrhea usually stays controlled without pharmaceuticals. The thought of a high colonic makes me shudder. (how did you make that leap anyhow from taking probiotics to assuming a poster indulges in high colonics? You're weird).

Anyway my point is that you are full of hot air and have a need to be loud and right. You lack insight and empathy. No everyone has a perfect GI tract or autoimmune system. To each his own. You should rein in that desire to be almighty and right all the time.
Agree it was a big jump from probiotics to high colonics. - sm
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But then it was an equally big jump from how to get antibiotics without a prescription to telling people to just take probiotics instead.

For myself, my take on probiotics is that they may be a good idea to help restore the gut flora if you end up needing to take antibiotics or in certain other circumstances where your gut flora has been temporarily put out of whack. But unless you have some chronic disease that is permanently messing you up, you should then be able to maintain your own colony of healthy gut organisms without daily reinfusions. The fact you can't keep the little beasties alive suggests that maybe the beasties you're swallowing aren't the ones best suited to the environment. It's sort of like trying to keep a San Francisco sourdough mother going in Missouri--pretty soon, it turns into a Missori sourdough, not a SF one. And there's nothing wrong with that if you're in Missouri.
If the only way you can control your chronic diarrhea is with probiotics, then at least you have a way to treat your symptoms. My question would be what the actual cause of those symptoms was, though, and what I could do to fix that. (Maybe you should look into getting a fecal transplant of some stuff that is happy living in Missouri instead.) And I also wouldn't extrapolate from my particular issues and experience to suggest that the whole rest of the population needs to treat their chronic diarrhea the same way--mostly because the whole rest of the population doesn't HAVE chronic, intractable diarrhea. Most people I know can eat fruit salad every day without getting diarrhea.
Some people have to feel important. sm - see message
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They'll talk all kinds of nonsense to make themselves feel high and mighty. Never ever assume. You look like an "ass." People lose respect for those who think they know it all and run the other way.