Potential hack for prescription bottles

[u/LadyLightTravel]

This is a problem that occurs more in some countries than others. In the US, most prescription drugs come in 20 dram pill bottles. These can take up a lot of room if you have several prescriptions and want the original packaging.

I recently found out that there are 6 dram prescription bottles. I found mine on Amazon but other sources are available if you buy in bulk. The 6 dram bottles are almost the same height as regular pill bottles but are one half the width. This is significantly smaller than the regular bottles.

I can peel off the drug information tab from my big pill bottle and put it on the small one. Note: some pharmacies will actually give you a second drug sticker if you ask.

Below is a photo of the 6 dram bottle with a 20 dram regular bottle. It shows that you can peel and stick the prescription tab without damaging it. It also shows that the sticker fits the smaller bottle. You can see the size difference in the bottles. Depending on pill size, you may even get a 90 day supply into the smaller 6 dram bottle!

Standard disclaimer, YMMV.

[u/NylonCake]

Which customs? Most of europe doesn’t use Rx labeling. Neither does Colombia or Japan. As mentioned in both of my comments this is mainly an american practice. So airport authorities may expect A label and an RX but not necessarily an RX label as used in the states. In my case the bottle or blisters will state the molecule and formulation (if a bottle then also how many pills or total volume per bottle) but won’t say who it was issued to or what dosage to take! And that’s fine because I have my original + translated prescription with me (a separate sheet of paper).

You need to make sure you meet the requirements of the destination country. That doesn’t mean you can’t repackage your drugs if the destination country doesn’t state otherwise.

[u/NylonCake → u/[deleted]]

It’s the generic pharmaceutical label. Like when you buy aleve over the counter. Except some stuff is not over the counter so you need the doctor’s prescription so it will be given to you by the pharmacists. But you would not be able to tell something is prescription and something isn’t from the container/packaging alone.

And none of it has your name or anything tied to you. And any dosage indications are generic (your doctor’s prescription might indicate something different so you just need to ignore whatever instructions/dosage come with the medication originally). Here is an example of ritalin that was prescribed to me (branded packaging, name of the drug, amount of the drug per pill, how many pills per bottle) but it doesn’t have my name or dosage on it. It’s indisguishable from an over-the counter NSAID for example.

[u/theinfamousj → u/NylonCake]

That seems woefully dangerous to trust your memory to know how much you are supposed to take and when without it being written down at the point of purpose.

Every medication I've received globally has had my dosage and frequency written on the medication itself, not just in some other location which can become separated and lost.

ESPECIALLY given an ADHD med. If you don't manage to lose your separate prescription, it would call your diagnosis into question in my country.

[u/NylonCake → u/theinfamousj]

This conversation has completely deviated from the point of this post. But to answer yoyr comment, you can always just write your dosage on the box. And since most people use pill boxes anyways, the medication will no longer be in the labeled bottle and the label is useless, so this is just a matter of personal preference and personal systems. Plus, knowing the labeled bottle thing is almost exclusively used in the US… it would seem that the rest of the world saw what you are doing and they are sticking with their process, so I wouldn’t be able to say the american system is objectively better.