Advice on importing NDT from American pharmacy to Australia while travelling.

[jacintaoreilly]

I am going travelling to Australia for at least 12 months and wondered if anyone knows the rules around importing your own medication as I can’t find anything definite online. I live in the UK and import NDT from the USA and wanted to do the same in Australia but I’m unsure how easy this will be. Thanks in advance.

[Hidden]

Hopefully, forum members in Australia will know more about this but, logically, it all depends on the import laws of the country in question. As far as I know, it's legal in the UK to import drugs, incl prescription drugs, for personal use. That is illegal in most other countries I know of.

If you don't have a prescription for NDT but self-source, you may not be allowed to import it to Australia if import of prescription drugs for personal use is not permitted. If you have a prescription for it, it would depend on whether Australia recognises UK prescriptions so that they can be filled in Australia.

Is that information not available on the webpage of their Ministry of Health? If not, could you not email them to find out about their laws re import of prescription drugs and the recognition of foreign prescriptions?

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Or could you simply not stock enough NDT in advance to get you through a whole year? Might be easier.

[jacintaoreilly in reply to Hidden]

Thanks!

[Hidden]

Here is a link about it. tga.gov.au/blogs/tga-topics...

NDT is available here as a prescription medication, but you might need to do some research to find a doctor to prescribe. Usually it has a six month use by date, and I've certainly got six months worth at a time to take travelling (within Aus). It's also likely to be a different format as it comes into Australia as a powder and is compounded to your specific dose. Apparently you can specify fillers, but I never have.

Will you be in one place or moving about?

[jacintaoreilly in reply to Hidden]

Thanks

[Hidden]

Also, you might see if you can join one of the Australian thyroid FB groups as they might have some better ideas for you. There look to be a bunch of them.

[jacintaoreilly in reply to Hidden]

Thanks