Medications, Prescriptions and Pharmacies

Caveat: I have no medical training.  Please use the information in this article as a reference only, and consult with your physician before taking any medication.

The first time you get sick and go to the doctor in Chile, you will probably discover two things:

1. Chilean doctors prescribe a lot of drugs
2. In many cases, you don’t need a prescription to buy those drugs

You’ll also be surprised by how cheap some medications are (US$1.50 for a full prescription’s worth) and how expensive others are.  In general, health insurance plans do not cover medications, so whatever the pharmacy is charging is what you’ll pay.  The government does subsidize drugs for certain illnesses and in certain population segments.

Prescription drugs

Until around 2005, many pharmacies sold antibiotics without a prescription.  This allowed overuse and improper use of antibiotics.   The government has since clamped down on antibiotic sales; pharmacies require a valid prescription, which they will keep (this is referred to as receta retenida). But the damage is already done: Chile’s infectious bacterial population is particularly robust and drug-resistant.

Some medications available without a prescription in Chile are:

• birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives
• certain less common NSAIDs such as diclofenac
• desloratadine and other anti-allergy medications
• pseudoephedrine, the original active ingredient in the decongestant Sudafed, now all but unavailable in the U.S. due to its use as a raw material in the preparation of the street drug crystal methamphetamine

Of course, even you should always see your doctor before taking any medication other than common pain and cold remedies.  However, if, for example, you discover you have a yeast infection on the first morning of a long weekend, being able to head straight to the drugstore to buy a dose of Diflucan (fluconazole) can save you some serious time, money and discomfort.

This lack of supervision over the sale a majority of medications may seem reckless, but I think it just recognizes a basic fact: people tend not to abuse drugs that aren’t either mind-altering or performance-enhancing. Medications that fall into those two categories are duly controlled, and the rest are doled out under the assumption that you know what’s wrong with you and how to properly treat it (antibiotics, as mentioned above, are an important– and likely unique– exception to this rule.)  A side effect of this is that pharmacists in Chile do a quite a lot of diagnosing and consumer education about medications and treatment options.  Do take advantage of their knowledge and experience when buying medicine without a prescription.

Tylenol

If you are from the United States, perhaps the most valuable thing I can tell you about over-the-counter medications is that Chileans use the British word for acetaminophen (Tylenol): paracetamol.  In many other cases, you can employ the append-a-vowel-to-the-English-word rule to get a drug’s name in Spanish, e.g. ibuprofen -> ibuprofeno, aspirin -> aspirina.

Alternative medicine

If you find, as many expats do, that you (or your children) are prescribed far too many medications even for illnesses that would seem to call for rest, lots of liquids and better future hygiene, there is a large and well-established alternative medicine community in Santiago and other large cities.  You can choose health providers who are conventional physicians who prefer to treat non-life-threatening illnesses with homeopathic, anthroposophic and/or natural remedies before resorting to conventional medications.