Question.
Is it better to have your doctor write the prescription and just buy the Japanese equivalent of your anti-depressants (mine specifically is escitalopram)? Or to just have your family ship it out to you?
Which is the best/cheapest option since my doctor only prescribes me 3 months worth at a time. Would love to hear what current JETs/alumni did for this.
8 comments
I currently take Pristiq and Concerta, plus the Nuvaring for my bc. All three of these would be a huge pain for me to get prescribed to me in Japan. I called my health insurance company just to see what they would be willing to let my doctor prescribe me. They were able to do an override on my account and allot me 394 tablets of each. I will be bringing a 3 month supply of the birth control and just have that shipped. From what I’ve asked, I can bring as much as my doctor is willing to write. You might want to find a new doctor, or just be honest about the situation and how much of a pain it will be to ship it every three months. (It could get stuck in customs, etc.)
Not a Jet, but I take lexapro (escitalopram) and it’s much easier just to get it prescribed here (Japan is super strict with any kind of drugs/medication, so I wouldn’t risk it getting stuck in customs).
I brought one of my lexapro boxes with my name and medication label on it to my doctor and told him how long I’ve been taking it etc and he prescribed it. I get 2 month supplies each time because going to the doctor every month is a pain lol, they only have 10 or 20mg though (no 5mg)
(The first time I went to get lexapro in Japan I brought a note from my doctor in my home country explaining my current prescriptions just in case, but I didn’t end up needing it.)
Hey I have diabetes and I will need my meds…will it be hard to get it there? What do I need to do to get my medication prescription? I know over 1 month supply I need to fill out that form for customs which I’m going to do soon. I won’t have insurance back home since it’s through work and once I quit I will be off it. Does my doctor need to write a prescription? Or do I just go to a doctor there to get the meds I need there?
Escitalopram, also known as Lexapro, is fairly easy to get prescribed from a Japanese psychiatrist.
I take effexor, and my mom used to pick up my prescription and mail it to me when I first got here. That never caused any delays, but maybe it could have if the wrong paranoid bureaucrat happened to be working in customs that day. For that reason, I would recommend just finding a psychiatrist here.
I take Escitalopram as well and was fortunate that my psychiatrist gave me a year’s prescription.
As some other commenters have mentioned, escitalopram is legally prescribed in Japan, so you’ll theoretically have access to it if you get a doctor here to re-prescribe it to you. But after living here for a year now, I will say that systems in Japan usually take a long time to navigate and your desired results are not guaranteed.
I’m also fortunate that my BoE employs a JET alumni to help us current JETs go to the doctor, the bank, etc. I can imagine it would be very hard to go through the medical system if your Japanese isn’t at a high enough level. I personally think it would be easier to have your family ship it to you if they’re willing to do so and circumvent the issue entirely.
That said, have you tried asking your doctor for a year’s worth of doses even though you usually only get three months’ worth?
A fellow escitalopram/Lexapro user! It seems they still don’t have the generic here, but getting Lexapro is easy. Come with as much as you can take in with the yakkan shoumei, to give yourself time to find a doctor, and bring with a copy of your prescription. Even in the inaka, you should be able to find a “mental clinic” or “kokoro clinic,” though if you’re unsure, you can go to a regular doctor (naika) and see if they can prescribe it to you or give you a recommendation of where to go.
Then, you just show them the prescription and say that you’ve been taking it for however long and that you need to continue it while you’re in Japan. You may not be able to get 3 months worth- my doctor insisted on seeing me monthly for 5 minutes for the first year. I’m on 20mg and it’s about 4000 yen a month.
I take Effexor and had no issues at all getting a prescription here! I filled out a yakkan shoumei but was only allowed a 6 month supply from the Dr back home, so I brought that with me to Japan. When I had 1 box left I went to an English speaking Dr in my main city (only 30 min bus ride from my house and school) and showed him the boxes of the medication I am taking. He did a quick search on his computer to make sure they had the same thing in Japan and then gave me a script for like a 90 day supply. Only delay was that they needed to order in the medication at the pharmacy across the road but that only took a day or two.
Not sure if this is unique to Canada, but there should be a form available from your doctor/pharmacy specifically for international travel that will allow them to override prescription limits (up to, IIRC, a six month supply at a time)
It’s basically just an attestation that you’ll be overseas working for x amount of time and require your refill(s) ahead of time.