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This post lists several online overseas pharmacies where you can buy prescription pharmaceutical drugs without needing to supply a prescription. The pharmacies listed in this post are reliable long-standing companies that have good user feedback on pharmacy review sites.
Popular and Reliable Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some popular and reliable long-established "no prescription" pharmacies.
This pharmacies list was last updated in 2024.
TIP ➤ This Search Tool can find the drugs you want at the pharmacies listed below. Searching these 50+ pharmacies individually takes time; the search tool is faster. Click on the "Pharma" tab in the tool.
Notes on These Pharmacies
The above pharmacies are prescription-free (they require no prescription, even if their websites say otherwise).
• Inhousepharmacy.vu sell high quality pharmaceutical products made by major Western pharmaceutical companies, as well as generic drugs. They offer free shipping, even on small orders.
• Goldpharma.com specialise in inexpensive generic and brand name drugs made by European pharmaceutical companies. Goldpharma are good quality, cheap, reliable, and have a massive range, so you are almost always going to find the drug you are looking for at Goldpharma. Goldpharma ship from within the EU, via their network of EU-based pharmacies, and delivery times are very fast within Europe, around a week or so. They are also one of the few pharmacies that ship to Canada.1
You do not need a prescription to buy from Goldpharma. At the checkout, you select the option "No, I do not have a prescription. I like to attempt by completing a tele-medical consultation to receive the requested treatment". You then fill out an online questionnaire about your health (takes less than a minute), which acts as your prescription.
• Unitedpharmacies.md and unitedpharmacies-uk.md sell both Western pharmaceutical drugs as well as cheaper Indian generics. But they only ship to the US and UK respectively.
• 4nrx.md and 4nrx-uk.md only ship to the US and UK respectively. They are sister companies to United Pharmacies. They offer free shipping on orders over $50 or £50.
• Buy-pharma.md has very cheap prices, selling inexpensive generic drugs made by Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla or Sun Pharma. They are reliable, and have good communications. Buy-pharma can send some of their products from Germany, which means faster shipping, but you have to ask them whether the item you want can be sent from Germany.1
• Alldaychemist.com has cheap prices on Indian generics. www.reliablerxpharmacy.com is a sister company to AllDayChemist, and have similar stock. AllDayChemist ship from India, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Mauritius and the United States and other countries.
I have used the above pharmacies on numerous occasions over the years, and found them very reliable.
More pharmacies with user rated reputations: https://pharmacyreviewer.com/all-online-pharmacies
Other Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some less popular but long-established no prescription pharmacies. The pharmacies below have a smaller stock range of drugs than the pharmacies listed above.
TIP ➤ This Search Tool helps you find the drugs you want at the no prescription pharmacies listed below (click on the "Pharma" tab in the tool).
Notes on These Pharmacies
The above pharmacies are prescription-free (you can buy without a prescription, even if their websites say otherwise).
• Pharmacygeoff.md and pharmacygeoff-uk.md only ship to the US and UK respectively. They are sister companies to United Pharmacies.
• Generics.greencrosspharmacy.online and purchase-prep.com are sites which sell PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) drugs that help prevent catching HIV. However, their prices are cheap, and they stock many other types of drug.
• Medstore-online.in sells benzodiazepines.
• Internationalpharmacy.com ships from the USA, and for this reason cannot supply US customers, but ships to most other countries around the world.
New Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some new prescription-free pharmacies.
Notes on These Pharmacies
• BGpharmadrugs.com has a minimum order (including shipping) of $93.
Russian Product Prescription-Free Pharmacies
These pharmacies specialise in Russian pharmaceuticals.
Notes on These Pharmacies
• Rupharma.com, europechemist.com, extrapharmacy.ru and otc-online-store.com are very reliable, long-standing Russian pharmacies.
• Europechemist.com specialises in shipping to countries with strict customs, and is run by rupharma.com.
• Medicinesdelivery.com dispatches from Kyiv, Ukraine.
• Pilloid.com, pillbuys.com, mysalve.com and wmmedicalsupply.com are all part of the Pilloid Network. They are based in and ship from Russia, except mysalve.com which is based in and ships from the Ukraine.
Shipping to Countries With Strict Customs
Some countries like Canada and many European nations have strict customs, and it is hard to get pharmaceutical drugs delivered to these countries. However, the following pharmacies specialise in shipping to countries with strict customs:
Legality of Importing Prescription Drugs for Personal Use
In the UK, it is legal to import up to 3 months' prescription medications (see here and here), and likewise it is legal in Australia.
US law on importation is detailed here (basically you are not allowed import unless the drug cannot be obtained in the US; but US customs tend to turn a blind eye to medicine imports, for compassionate reasons).
Canada does not allow importation of prescription medications, except if those medications are carried over the border personally by the patient.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use is allowed and fully legal in these EU countries — Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Romania and Slovenia.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use requires a license from the health ministry in these EU countries — Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use is not allowed in these EU countries — Sweden, see here. Netherlands (except if you carry the drugs across the border yourself), see here. Belgium, see here.
This webpage details the legality of importing non-controlled prescription drugs for personal use in each country.
What Is a Reliable Prescription-Free Pharmacy?
When looking for a prescription-free online pharmacy (a pharmacy where you can buy drugs without a prescription), we want one that is trustworthy and reliable, which means that the pharmacy:
(1) Supplies genuine drugs (although fake drugs often contain the same active ingredient as legitimate drugs).
(2) Reliably mails the drugs to you (we don't want pharmacies with reports of drugs paid for but not arriving).
(3) Does not pass on your personal details to spammers. Some online pharmacies will sell you email address or telephone number to spammers, and you will then receive nuisance marketing.
(4) Does not use your credit card number fraudulently. Some very low end, unscrupulous online pharmacies will occasionally pass on your credit card details, leading to fraudulent use of your card.
Checking That An Online Prescription-Free Pharmacy Is Reliable
To check a pharmacy's reliability, you can start with a simple Google search on the pharmacy's name or web address, including in your search words like scam, fake, counterfeit, fraud. This will pick up any articles about negative experiences with the pharmacy in question.
Also in Google, entering the pharmacy URL and placing the word "review" afterwards will find reviews. And TrustPilot is a great place to get reviews of a website.
It's also a good idea to check how long the pharmacy has been in business. A pharmacy that has been around for 3 or more years is likely to be more reliable that one which has been in existence for less than 1 year (dubious or scam pharmacies often come and go quickly).
The age of a pharmacy's URL can be checked here: DNSQuery, Netcraft Site Report, Domain age checker, Wayback Machine.
A popular pharmacy website used by many people will tend to be more reliable, and popularity can be measured by the global rank of the website. The smaller the global rank, the more popular the website. The global ranking can be obtained at SimilarWeb. SimilarWeb also gives lots of other useful information about a website. High-quality long-established online pharmacies that are very popular will tend to have a global rank lower than 1 million.
Checking That the Drugs You Receive are Not Fake
You can easily verify the authenticity of any drugs you buy online by contacting the manufacturer named on the packaging. All manufacturers have drug safety contact emails (often drugsafety@manufacturer.com) that will verify the authenticity of your medication if you send them images of the drug box and the items inside (the blister packs or jars).
ME/CFS Patients May Need To Buy Their Own Drugs Online
Chronic fatigue syndrome patients may need to buy their own pharmaceutical drugs online because:
(1) Disability: a patient may be housebound, and cannot easily get to a doctor.
(2) Convenience: an ME/CFS patient may not quite be housebound, but due to mental frailty, may find meetings with doctors very hard work and exhausting, especially as many doctors can be dismissive, and even scathing, of ME/CFS. I personally found it hard to be with authority figures such as doctors when I was very ill with ME/CFS and anxiety disorder; I found it unpleasant to interact doctors, even though my doctor is a reasonably nice and accommodating guy. Sometimes your own mental frailty rom illness can make an appointment with a doctor very hard going.
(3) ME/CFS patients may have difficulties in persuading their doctor to prescribe drugs to use off-label for ME/CFS. Furthermore, doctors may not have the freedom to prescribe drugs off-label, or not have the freedom to prescribe drugs experimentally, if they are guided by evidence-based medicine, or by insurance rules, or the rules of socialised medicine systems (such as the NHS in the UK).
(4) Doctors may know very little about ME/CFS, so they would not know why a particular drug might be beneficial for ME/CFS. In many cases, patients are more knowledgable about ME/CFS than their doctor.
(5) Many doctors still erroneously believe ME/CFS is a psychosomatic or somatoform disease, and so may not agree to prescribe antivirals, etc, because the doctor incorrectly assumes that the cause of ME/CFS is "all in the mind".
(6) ME/CFS is a somewhat unusual disease in that drugs or supplements that are very helpful for one patient may provide no benefit for the next patient. Thus it usually requires trying out dozens of drugs one by one, until you find the right drug(s) that work well for you. There are over 250 drugs that can be beneficial for ME/CFS; you will be very lucky if you find a doctor who has the time and inclination to go through this process of trying out dozens of drugs one by one on the patient, in order to identify the ones that work. So this why ME/CFS patients can often make substantial improvements to their condition by buying and trying ME/CFS drugs themselves.
(7) Lower costs: you can import generic versions of drugs from countries like India where the drugs are manufactured more cheaply. And for those without medical insurance in the US, it's certainly going to be cheaper to buy generic drugs online from overseas, rather than pay for a doctor's appointment, and then pay for the drugs in a US pharmacy. Many ME/CFS patients are unable to work, and because ME/CFS is often trivialised by the medical profession, it patients may not receive any disability allowance. So accessing medications at lower cost is important.
If you buy pharmaceutical drugs yourself, it is a very good idea to use a drug interactions checker such as this one or this one to ensure there are no adverse interactions between the various drugs you are taking.
LegitScript Wants to Block Access to Cheap Pharmaceuticals
John Horton set up an organisation called LegitScript which is trying to close down online pharmacies selling drugs without prescription, or forcing these pharmacies to ask clients for prescriptions.
Horton set up LegitScript with a remit to stop people getting access to cheaper pharmaceuticals and generics. LegitScript will label any pharmacy that does not require a prescription as "rogue", no matter how high the quality that pharmacy.
It is a bit of a mystery who is funding LegitScript, but you can guess it comes from pharmaceutical companies, who stand to lose a lot of money if patients can buy generic drugs at a fraction of their cost in North America and Europe.
So if you see that LegitScript have criticised a pharmacy, this does not necessarily mean that that pharmacy is bad. More info on LegitScript:
LegitScript – Not So Legit?
Complaints about Legitscript
I emailed LegitScript, explaining that chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients are often ignored by their doctors, as unfortunately many doctors still do not believe ME/CFS is real, and this often means that these doctors will not prescribe necessary drugs like antivirals to ME/CFS patients. Thus ME/CFS patients need to be able to buy such drugs online, without a prescription.
I asked LegitScript in my email if they were acting in the best interests of sick patients. I got no reply from them. LegitScript's contact page is here. You may also want to email LegitScript, and ask them if they are operating in the best interests of patients.
I am not sure if I trust the Web of Trust (WOT) website reputation checker. WOT has partnered with LegitScript who are acting to solely maintain pharmaceutical industry profits. Ref: here.
Paying by Bitcoin
LegitScript have a relationship with the VISA international credit card network, such that when LegitScript want to take away the credit card merchant facilities from any online pharmacy, they just ask at VISA, and the pharmacy's VISA merchant facilities are withdrawn. This occurs even with trustworthy and reliable pharmacies located outside of the US. LegitScript do this in order to make it more difficult for people to buy cheaper generic pharmaceuticals, which thereby protects Western pharmaceutical industry profits.
Some of the pharmacies that LegitScript have taken credit card payment facilities away from are highly reliable organisations that have been serving customers for 10 or 20 years, and have a spotless customers service record (no customer complaints at all to be found on pharmacy review sites). So taking away credit card payment facilities has nothing to do with protecting the public; it's all to do with protecting pharmaceutical industry profits.
Anyway, so now some online pharmacies are providing bitcoin as a payment option. Once you set up a cryptocurrency wallet on your computer, smartphone or tablet, paying by bitcoin is actually faster and easier than using a credit card. Instructions for setting up a cryptocurrency wallet are given below.
Popular and Reliable Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some popular and reliable long-established "no prescription" pharmacies.
This pharmacies list was last updated in 2024.
TIP ➤ This Search Tool can find the drugs you want at the pharmacies listed below. Searching these 50+ pharmacies individually takes time; the search tool is faster. Click on the "Pharma" tab in the tool.
| Popular and Reliable Pharmacies | Founded | Shipping Country | Shipping Time to UK (Days) | Express Shipping | Shipping Info Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| www.inhousepharmacy.vu | 1996 | Vanuatu | 14-42 | ➤ | |
| goldpharma.com | 2005 | Europe | 6 | ➤ | |
| www.buy-pharma.md | 2007 | India | 30 | ➤ | |
| www.unitedpharmacies.md | 1998 | 30 | EMS 7-21 | ➤ | |
| www.unitedpharmacies-uk.md | 2012 | Hong Kong | 30 | EMS 7-21 DHL 4-7 | ➤ |
| www.alldaychemist.com | 2002 | Various | 20-30 | ||
| www.safegenericpharmacy.com | 2014 | India | 10-14 | 6-11 | ➤ |
| www.cheapmedicineshop.com | 2016 | ? | |||
| www.alldaygeneric.com | 2016 | India | 15-20 | ➤ | |
| mexipharmacy.mx | 2014 | Mexico | 25-30 | ➤ | |
| farmaciasdelnino.mx | 2014 | Mexico | 20-30 | ➤ | |
| www.medicinesmexico.com.mx | 2020 | 15-30 | ➤ | ||
| www.premiumrxdrugs.com | 2013 | 20-30 | ➤ | ||
| www.reliablerxpharmacy.com | 2004 | 20-30 | ➤ | ||
| www.genericdoctor.com | 2009 | India | 10-21 | 5-9 | ➤ |
| www.4nrx.md | 1999 | 30 | EMS 7-21 | ➤ | |
| www.4nrx-uk.md | 2012 | Hong Kong | 10-30 | EMS 7-21 DHL 4-7 | ➤ |
| bio-japan.net | 2013 | Japan | 5-10 | ➤ |
Notes on These Pharmacies
The above pharmacies are prescription-free (they require no prescription, even if their websites say otherwise).
• Inhousepharmacy.vu sell high quality pharmaceutical products made by major Western pharmaceutical companies, as well as generic drugs. They offer free shipping, even on small orders.
• Goldpharma.com specialise in inexpensive generic and brand name drugs made by European pharmaceutical companies. Goldpharma are good quality, cheap, reliable, and have a massive range, so you are almost always going to find the drug you are looking for at Goldpharma. Goldpharma ship from within the EU, via their network of EU-based pharmacies, and delivery times are very fast within Europe, around a week or so. They are also one of the few pharmacies that ship to Canada.1
You do not need a prescription to buy from Goldpharma. At the checkout, you select the option "No, I do not have a prescription. I like to attempt by completing a tele-medical consultation to receive the requested treatment". You then fill out an online questionnaire about your health (takes less than a minute), which acts as your prescription.
• Unitedpharmacies.md and unitedpharmacies-uk.md sell both Western pharmaceutical drugs as well as cheaper Indian generics. But they only ship to the US and UK respectively.
• 4nrx.md and 4nrx-uk.md only ship to the US and UK respectively. They are sister companies to United Pharmacies. They offer free shipping on orders over $50 or £50.
• Buy-pharma.md has very cheap prices, selling inexpensive generic drugs made by Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla or Sun Pharma. They are reliable, and have good communications. Buy-pharma can send some of their products from Germany, which means faster shipping, but you have to ask them whether the item you want can be sent from Germany.1
• Alldaychemist.com has cheap prices on Indian generics. www.reliablerxpharmacy.com is a sister company to AllDayChemist, and have similar stock. AllDayChemist ship from India, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Mauritius and the United States and other countries.
I have used the above pharmacies on numerous occasions over the years, and found them very reliable.
More pharmacies with user rated reputations: https://pharmacyreviewer.com/all-online-pharmacies
Other Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some less popular but long-established no prescription pharmacies. The pharmacies below have a smaller stock range of drugs than the pharmacies listed above.
TIP ➤ This Search Tool helps you find the drugs you want at the no prescription pharmacies listed below (click on the "Pharma" tab in the tool).
| Other Pharmacies | Founded | Shipping Country | Shipping Time to UK (Days) | Express Shipping | Shipping Info Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| www.medstore-online.in | 2015 | 14-28 | ➤ | ||
| www.pharmacygeoff.md | 2012 | 30 | EMS 7-21 DHL 4-7 | ➤ | |
| www.pharmacygeoff-uk.md | 2013 | Hong Kong | 10-30 | EMS 7-21 DHL 4-7 | ➤ |
| www.clearskypharmacy.biz | 2000 | Singapore | 20-35 | ➤ | |
| www.schickersunichem.co.nz | 2013 | Worldwide | 14-21 | EMS 5-9 | ➤ |
| www.rxloyal.com | 2012 | 14-21 | EMS 5-9 | ➤ | |
| www.rxshop.md | 2009 | 14-20 | ➤ | ||
| www.indianpharma.co | 2008 | India | 10-21 | 5-9 | ➤ |
| internationalpharmacy.com | 1994 | USA | 15 | 7 | ➤ |
| generics.greencrosspharmacy.online | 2018 | 14-21 | EMS 10-14 DHL 5-7 | ➤ | |
| www.purchase-prep.com | 2015 | India + Singapore | 12-18 | ||
| www.allgenericmedicine.com | 2012 | India | 15-20 | ➤ |
Notes on These Pharmacies
The above pharmacies are prescription-free (you can buy without a prescription, even if their websites say otherwise).
• Pharmacygeoff.md and pharmacygeoff-uk.md only ship to the US and UK respectively. They are sister companies to United Pharmacies.
• Generics.greencrosspharmacy.online and purchase-prep.com are sites which sell PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) drugs that help prevent catching HIV. However, their prices are cheap, and they stock many other types of drug.
• Medstore-online.in sells benzodiazepines.
• Internationalpharmacy.com ships from the USA, and for this reason cannot supply US customers, but ships to most other countries around the world.
New Prescription-Free Pharmacies
The table below lists some new prescription-free pharmacies.
| New Pharmacies | Founded | Shipping Country | Shipping Time to UK (Days) | Express Shipping | Shipping Info Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pharmacyonearth.com | 2021 | Singapore | 15-20 | ➤ | |
| bgpharmadrugs.com | 2021 | Europe | 4-12 | ➤ | |
| onlinepharmacy-uk.org | 2022 | Europe (Bulgaria) | 7 |
Notes on These Pharmacies
• BGpharmadrugs.com has a minimum order (including shipping) of $93.
Russian Product Prescription-Free Pharmacies
These pharmacies specialise in Russian pharmaceuticals.
| Russian Pharmacies | Founded | Shipping Country | Shipping Time to UK (Days) | Express Shipping | Shipping Info Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rupharma.com | 2013 | Russia | 21-28 | ➤ | |
| europechemist.com | 2021 | Europe | 7-21 | ➤ | |
| extrapharmacy.ru | 2014 | Russia | ➤ | ||
| otc-online-store.com | 2013 | Russia | 10-30 | ➤ | |
| medicinesdelivery.com | 2013 | Ukraine | 10-28 | EMS 7-10 | ➤ |
| pilloid.com | 2018 | Russia | 7-14 | EMS 7-14 | ➤ |
| pillbuys.com | 2018 | Russia | 7-14 | EMS 7-14 | ➤ |
| mysalve.com | 2020 | Ukraine | 14-28 | ➤ | |
| wmmedicalsupply.com | 2018 | Russia | |||
| www.medixlife.com | 2015 | 20-30 | ➤ | ||
| buy-pharm.com | 2020 | ||||
| farmacy-houses.com | 2019 | ||||
| shopmybuy.com | 2019 | 21-35 | ➤ | ||
| pharmrus.com | 2016 | 20-60 | ➤ | ||
| ru-pills.com | 2021 | Russia | 7-14 | ➤ |
Notes on These Pharmacies
• Rupharma.com, europechemist.com, extrapharmacy.ru and otc-online-store.com are very reliable, long-standing Russian pharmacies.
• Europechemist.com specialises in shipping to countries with strict customs, and is run by rupharma.com.
• Medicinesdelivery.com dispatches from Kyiv, Ukraine.
• Pilloid.com, pillbuys.com, mysalve.com and wmmedicalsupply.com are all part of the Pilloid Network. They are based in and ship from Russia, except mysalve.com which is based in and ships from the Ukraine.
Shipping to Countries With Strict Customs
Some countries like Canada and many European nations have strict customs, and it is hard to get pharmaceutical drugs delivered to these countries. However, the following pharmacies specialise in shipping to countries with strict customs:
- Mexipharmacy.mx
- Indianpharma.co
- Genericdoctor.com
- Goldpharma.com ship from within the EU (Germany), so can deliver to other EU countries without customs issues.
- Rupharma.com are able to ship from within the EU if you ask them (they can ship from Lithuania which is in the European Union). Rupharma also run another pharmacy called europechemist.com which ship from within the EU and are able to send to countries with strict customs.
- Onlinepharmacy-bg.com ship from within the EU (Bulgaria).
Legality of Importing Prescription Drugs for Personal Use
In the UK, it is legal to import up to 3 months' prescription medications (see here and here), and likewise it is legal in Australia.
US law on importation is detailed here (basically you are not allowed import unless the drug cannot be obtained in the US; but US customs tend to turn a blind eye to medicine imports, for compassionate reasons).
Canada does not allow importation of prescription medications, except if those medications are carried over the border personally by the patient.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use is allowed and fully legal in these EU countries — Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Romania and Slovenia.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use requires a license from the health ministry in these EU countries — Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.
Import of prescription medicines for personal use is not allowed in these EU countries — Sweden, see here. Netherlands (except if you carry the drugs across the border yourself), see here. Belgium, see here.
This webpage details the legality of importing non-controlled prescription drugs for personal use in each country.
What Is a Reliable Prescription-Free Pharmacy?
When looking for a prescription-free online pharmacy (a pharmacy where you can buy drugs without a prescription), we want one that is trustworthy and reliable, which means that the pharmacy:
(1) Supplies genuine drugs (although fake drugs often contain the same active ingredient as legitimate drugs).
(2) Reliably mails the drugs to you (we don't want pharmacies with reports of drugs paid for but not arriving).
(3) Does not pass on your personal details to spammers. Some online pharmacies will sell you email address or telephone number to spammers, and you will then receive nuisance marketing.
(4) Does not use your credit card number fraudulently. Some very low end, unscrupulous online pharmacies will occasionally pass on your credit card details, leading to fraudulent use of your card.
Checking That An Online Prescription-Free Pharmacy Is Reliable
To check a pharmacy's reliability, you can start with a simple Google search on the pharmacy's name or web address, including in your search words like scam, fake, counterfeit, fraud. This will pick up any articles about negative experiences with the pharmacy in question.
Also in Google, entering the pharmacy URL and placing the word "review" afterwards will find reviews. And TrustPilot is a great place to get reviews of a website.
It's also a good idea to check how long the pharmacy has been in business. A pharmacy that has been around for 3 or more years is likely to be more reliable that one which has been in existence for less than 1 year (dubious or scam pharmacies often come and go quickly).
The age of a pharmacy's URL can be checked here: DNSQuery, Netcraft Site Report, Domain age checker, Wayback Machine.
A popular pharmacy website used by many people will tend to be more reliable, and popularity can be measured by the global rank of the website. The smaller the global rank, the more popular the website. The global ranking can be obtained at SimilarWeb. SimilarWeb also gives lots of other useful information about a website. High-quality long-established online pharmacies that are very popular will tend to have a global rank lower than 1 million.
Checking That the Drugs You Receive are Not Fake
You can easily verify the authenticity of any drugs you buy online by contacting the manufacturer named on the packaging. All manufacturers have drug safety contact emails (often drugsafety@manufacturer.com) that will verify the authenticity of your medication if you send them images of the drug box and the items inside (the blister packs or jars).
ME/CFS Patients May Need To Buy Their Own Drugs Online
Chronic fatigue syndrome patients may need to buy their own pharmaceutical drugs online because:
(1) Disability: a patient may be housebound, and cannot easily get to a doctor.
(2) Convenience: an ME/CFS patient may not quite be housebound, but due to mental frailty, may find meetings with doctors very hard work and exhausting, especially as many doctors can be dismissive, and even scathing, of ME/CFS. I personally found it hard to be with authority figures such as doctors when I was very ill with ME/CFS and anxiety disorder; I found it unpleasant to interact doctors, even though my doctor is a reasonably nice and accommodating guy. Sometimes your own mental frailty rom illness can make an appointment with a doctor very hard going.
(3) ME/CFS patients may have difficulties in persuading their doctor to prescribe drugs to use off-label for ME/CFS. Furthermore, doctors may not have the freedom to prescribe drugs off-label, or not have the freedom to prescribe drugs experimentally, if they are guided by evidence-based medicine, or by insurance rules, or the rules of socialised medicine systems (such as the NHS in the UK).
(4) Doctors may know very little about ME/CFS, so they would not know why a particular drug might be beneficial for ME/CFS. In many cases, patients are more knowledgable about ME/CFS than their doctor.
(5) Many doctors still erroneously believe ME/CFS is a psychosomatic or somatoform disease, and so may not agree to prescribe antivirals, etc, because the doctor incorrectly assumes that the cause of ME/CFS is "all in the mind".
(6) ME/CFS is a somewhat unusual disease in that drugs or supplements that are very helpful for one patient may provide no benefit for the next patient. Thus it usually requires trying out dozens of drugs one by one, until you find the right drug(s) that work well for you. There are over 250 drugs that can be beneficial for ME/CFS; you will be very lucky if you find a doctor who has the time and inclination to go through this process of trying out dozens of drugs one by one on the patient, in order to identify the ones that work. So this why ME/CFS patients can often make substantial improvements to their condition by buying and trying ME/CFS drugs themselves.
(7) Lower costs: you can import generic versions of drugs from countries like India where the drugs are manufactured more cheaply. And for those without medical insurance in the US, it's certainly going to be cheaper to buy generic drugs online from overseas, rather than pay for a doctor's appointment, and then pay for the drugs in a US pharmacy. Many ME/CFS patients are unable to work, and because ME/CFS is often trivialised by the medical profession, it patients may not receive any disability allowance. So accessing medications at lower cost is important.
If you buy pharmaceutical drugs yourself, it is a very good idea to use a drug interactions checker such as this one or this one to ensure there are no adverse interactions between the various drugs you are taking.
LegitScript Wants to Block Access to Cheap Pharmaceuticals
John Horton set up an organisation called LegitScript which is trying to close down online pharmacies selling drugs without prescription, or forcing these pharmacies to ask clients for prescriptions.
Horton set up LegitScript with a remit to stop people getting access to cheaper pharmaceuticals and generics. LegitScript will label any pharmacy that does not require a prescription as "rogue", no matter how high the quality that pharmacy.
It is a bit of a mystery who is funding LegitScript, but you can guess it comes from pharmaceutical companies, who stand to lose a lot of money if patients can buy generic drugs at a fraction of their cost in North America and Europe.
So if you see that LegitScript have criticised a pharmacy, this does not necessarily mean that that pharmacy is bad. More info on LegitScript:
LegitScript – Not So Legit?
Complaints about Legitscript
I emailed LegitScript, explaining that chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients are often ignored by their doctors, as unfortunately many doctors still do not believe ME/CFS is real, and this often means that these doctors will not prescribe necessary drugs like antivirals to ME/CFS patients. Thus ME/CFS patients need to be able to buy such drugs online, without a prescription.
I asked LegitScript in my email if they were acting in the best interests of sick patients. I got no reply from them. LegitScript's contact page is here. You may also want to email LegitScript, and ask them if they are operating in the best interests of patients.
I am not sure if I trust the Web of Trust (WOT) website reputation checker. WOT has partnered with LegitScript who are acting to solely maintain pharmaceutical industry profits. Ref: here.
Paying by Bitcoin
LegitScript have a relationship with the VISA international credit card network, such that when LegitScript want to take away the credit card merchant facilities from any online pharmacy, they just ask at VISA, and the pharmacy's VISA merchant facilities are withdrawn. This occurs even with trustworthy and reliable pharmacies located outside of the US. LegitScript do this in order to make it more difficult for people to buy cheaper generic pharmaceuticals, which thereby protects Western pharmaceutical industry profits.
Some of the pharmacies that LegitScript have taken credit card payment facilities away from are highly reliable organisations that have been serving customers for 10 or 20 years, and have a spotless customers service record (no customer complaints at all to be found on pharmacy review sites). So taking away credit card payment facilities has nothing to do with protecting the public; it's all to do with protecting pharmaceutical industry profits.
Anyway, so now some online pharmacies are providing bitcoin as a payment option. Once you set up a cryptocurrency wallet on your computer, smartphone or tablet, paying by bitcoin is actually faster and easier than using a credit card. Instructions for setting up a cryptocurrency wallet are given below.
Bitcoin Setup Instructions
Before you can get yourself some bitcoins, you first need to set up a cryptocurrency wallet, which is an app that runs on your computer, smartphone or tablet that holds the bitcoins you buy.
I find the Atomic wallet nice and simple (good for people with brain fog), and this wallet actually has a facility that allows you to buy bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies directly within the wallet, using a credit card. The Exodus wallet is another good one.
In Atomic, you are charged a 5% fee on cryptocurrency purchases, which is higher than the rate at some of the cheaper cryptocurrency exchanges (cheap exchanges like binance, coinbase or CEX.IO), but more convenient and much less complex.
Such cryptocurrency exchanges charge a similar fee for credit card cryptocurrency purchases, but some exchanges like CEX.IO have 0% fees for cryptocurrency purchases via bank transfer.
A video showing how to buy bitcoins on Atomic is found here. When purchasing bitcoins either in the Atomic wallet or on exchanges, you will need upload a photo of an ID document. The bitcoins you buy on Atomic are placed directly into your Atomic wallet, and soon after you buy them, you will see the bitcoin balance in your wallet go up.
Once you have set up you wallet and have some bitcoins in it, paying for goods by bitcoin is easy. When you purchase goods online and go through the normal website checkout process, the website will display a message (or send you an email) saying something like:
Please send 0.01245 bitcoins to our bitcoin receiving address: 1LxVP7PajrAhgYJsnriJXZhSzxd4eeurgu
You just copy that bitcoin receiving address, and in Atomic, go to Wallet > Bitcoin > Send, and paste in the bitcoin receiving address in the appropriate field. You then enter the amount to pay (0.01245 in this example), and press the "Send" button. That then transmits the bitcoins to the recipient.
Similarly, if someone asks you to send them some bitcoins, they will give you their bitcoin receiving address (which again will look something like: 1LxVP7PajrAhgYJsnriJXZhSzxd4eeurgu), and you use your wallet to send some bitcoins to that address in the same way.
If you want to receive bitcoins into your wallet from someone else, you will need to give that person a bitcoin receiving address provided by your wallet, which they then send their bitcoins to.
In the Atomic wallet, you can obtain such a bitcoin receiving address by going here: Wallet > Bitcoin > Receive. (Each time you want to receive bitcoins into your wallet, you should go there to obtain a fresh new receiving address).
Note that it may take about a couple of hours before bitcoins sent to you reach your wallet.
Before you can get yourself some bitcoins, you first need to set up a cryptocurrency wallet, which is an app that runs on your computer, smartphone or tablet that holds the bitcoins you buy.
I find the Atomic wallet nice and simple (good for people with brain fog), and this wallet actually has a facility that allows you to buy bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies directly within the wallet, using a credit card. The Exodus wallet is another good one.
In Atomic, you are charged a 5% fee on cryptocurrency purchases, which is higher than the rate at some of the cheaper cryptocurrency exchanges (cheap exchanges like binance, coinbase or CEX.IO), but more convenient and much less complex.
Such cryptocurrency exchanges charge a similar fee for credit card cryptocurrency purchases, but some exchanges like CEX.IO have 0% fees for cryptocurrency purchases via bank transfer.
A video showing how to buy bitcoins on Atomic is found here. When purchasing bitcoins either in the Atomic wallet or on exchanges, you will need upload a photo of an ID document. The bitcoins you buy on Atomic are placed directly into your Atomic wallet, and soon after you buy them, you will see the bitcoin balance in your wallet go up.
Once you have set up you wallet and have some bitcoins in it, paying for goods by bitcoin is easy. When you purchase goods online and go through the normal website checkout process, the website will display a message (or send you an email) saying something like:
Please send 0.01245 bitcoins to our bitcoin receiving address: 1LxVP7PajrAhgYJsnriJXZhSzxd4eeurgu
You just copy that bitcoin receiving address, and in Atomic, go to Wallet > Bitcoin > Send, and paste in the bitcoin receiving address in the appropriate field. You then enter the amount to pay (0.01245 in this example), and press the "Send" button. That then transmits the bitcoins to the recipient.
Similarly, if someone asks you to send them some bitcoins, they will give you their bitcoin receiving address (which again will look something like: 1LxVP7PajrAhgYJsnriJXZhSzxd4eeurgu), and you use your wallet to send some bitcoins to that address in the same way.
If you want to receive bitcoins into your wallet from someone else, you will need to give that person a bitcoin receiving address provided by your wallet, which they then send their bitcoins to.
In the Atomic wallet, you can obtain such a bitcoin receiving address by going here: Wallet > Bitcoin > Receive. (Each time you want to receive bitcoins into your wallet, you should go there to obtain a fresh new receiving address).
Note that it may take about a couple of hours before bitcoins sent to you reach your wallet.
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, but that is my impression )