Bringing (a lot of) meds with me when immigrating

[Tereza 27]

Hello,

 

I am finally moving to the states on the 20th this month

I have however a question about bringing prescription meds with me. I have pcos for which I have been taking a specific type of the birth control pill. My doctor kindly prescribed 5 packs or 15 months worth of the pill, which is obviously way more than the 90 days worth of they talk about on the TSA website. I probably won't need all of it as we are thinking about starting a family soon with my husband, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Where I come from, we get the pills in strips with the name of the meds on the back of it. My name is not on it and my prescription was a qr code that became disfunctional once scanned at the pharmacy.

How should I pack this? I'm worried they will be suspicious at the amount and confiscate it. Im thinking spliting it between my carry-on and my two checked begs, that way I have at least something left when I arrive? But that would probably seem even more suspicious to them 😕

I am also bringing some other meds, some prescription and some not, mainly pain killers used for period pain/back pain, allergies etc. but don't have the prescription for that either. I wouldn't even bother bringing these but I'd rather have it in case I need it and can avoid a (expensive) trip to doctor's in the states, at least for a while.

 

Any advice or personal experience will be greatly appreciated 🙂

Thank you!

Edited January 11, 2023 by Tereza

[SalishSea 17,819]

8 minutes ago, Tereza said:

Hello,

 

I am finally moving to the states on the 20th this month

I have however a question about bringing prescription meds with me. I have pcos for which I have been taking a specific type of the birth control pill. My doctor kindly prescribed 5 packs or 15 months worth of the pill, which is obviously way more than the 90 days worth of they talk about on the TSA website. I probably won't need all of it as we are thinking about starting a family soon with my husband, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Where I come from, we get the pills in strips with the name of the meds on the back of it. My name is not on it and my prescription was a qr code that became disfunctional once scanned at the pharmacy.

How should I pack this? I'm worried they will be suspicious at the amount and confiscate it. Im thinking spliting it between my carry-on and my two checked begs, that way I have at least something left when I arrive? But that would probably seem even more suspicious to them 😕

I am also bringing some other meds, some prescription and some not, mainly pain killers used for period pain/back pain, allergies etc. but don't have the prescription for that either. I wouldn't even bother bringing these but I'd rather have it in case I need it and can avoid a (expensive) trip to doctor's in the states, at least for a while.

 

Any advice or personal experience will be greatly appreciated 🙂

Thank you!

Do you have any type of documentation you could print out, such as from your online chart?

 

Birth  control is often dispensed as a year’s worth at a time, but since it doesn’t have your name on it, it would be good to have some documentation that links it to you.

[Tereza 27]

3 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

Do you have any type of documentation you could print out, such as from your online chart?

 

Birth  control is often dispensed as a year’s worth at a time, but since it doesn’t have your name on it, it would be good to have some documentation that links it to you.

We dont have anything like that here. I guess I could ask my doctor to write something with her signature on it, but it has to be in English and I dont think she speaks English... So I'd need to write it and let her put a stamp on it, which is kind of ridiculous and shouldn't be neccessary but I guess if I wanna have some peace of mind..

[Verrou 1,962]

1 minute ago, Tereza said:

We dont have anything like that here. I guess I could ask my doctor to write something with her signature on it, but it has to be in English and I dont think she speaks English... So I'd need to write it and let her put a stamp on it, which is kind of ridiculous and shouldn't be neccessary but I guess if I wanna have some peace of mind..

i will do that. or she can write it and you get certified translation for it.  better be safe than sorry

[SalishSea 17,819]

3 minutes ago, Misscloud said:

i will do that. or she can write it and you get certified translation for it.  better be safe than sorry

I think this is a good idea.   Bringing a reasonable amount of medication over for personal use shouldn’t be a problem, but doing this would at least help you to not worry during the flight, etc.

[top_secret 2,414]

CBP divides "pill issues" into two very distinct categories.  Controlled substances and non-controlled substances.  Birth control pills, allergy, blood pressure medicine, all that kind of stuff are in the category of non-controlled substances.  There is some kind of memo that they should allow a 90 days supply of any sort of non-controlled substance prescription drug.  In reality, for birth control pills or anything like that, it's almost inconceivable they would confiscate anything other than some gigantic huge quantity obviously for commercial sale.  Anything short of utterly ridiculous is fine.  Don't worry.

 

OTOH, "painkillers" are a different issue.   If we are talking ibuprofen, paracetamol or similar that is fine.  Don't worry.  But codeine, hydrocodone and/or anything similar or stronger, or even something like tramadol, tread very lightly.  They are "Controlled Substances" and thus treated very differently.  At the disgression of a CBP Officer they may allow 90 days supply with documentation that satisfies their disgression.  Or, they could confiscate them.  If undeclared, controled substances are a crime.

[TBoneTX 45,265]

Prescription medicines in a prescription bottle go a long way toward conferring legitimacy.

If you have several boxed packages, for example, it's prudent to get a clinician's note.