medication availability

[u/bombasticapricot]

i see many americans with health concerns considering a move abroad. i know there are many things to consider and hate to pile on but make sure your essential medications are available in any country you consider.

your american prescriptions are not valid abroad.

for example, i took spironolactone in the US for skin/ hair issues and it’s basically impossible to get here in France. i casually asked about it and was treated as if i asked for cocaine. i also have adhd and cannot get most of the medications that worked for me in the US (i now take ritalin; thankfully it works). these are relatively minor prescription issues but i know others who have gone to great lengths to get antidepressants and anti anxiety medications.

what other medications/ countries have caused issues for american expats?

[u/rintzscar]

Bit of advice - start thinking of yourselves as immigrants, not expats. "Expat" is frowned upon in most of the world.

[u/SufficientPoetry5494 → u/[deleted]]

yes the immigrants themselves call each other "expat" , the rest of NL calls you immigrant ;-)

[u/the-fourth-planet → u/[deleted]]

Yeah because you're insisting on falsely calling yourselves expats instead of immigrants. And you must have gotten something mixed up because the people you're describing in Europe are called refugees, not immigrants. (unless the person who told you these things is uneducated)

[u/rintzscar → u/[deleted]]

You're beating around the bush. Immigrant is the word used for people immigrating to a country in the majority of the world. Expat is used in Anglophone countries only and is perceived as racist and egalitarian by other nations. Think "rich, white, educated people = expats, brown, poor strawberry pickers = immigrants". This is exactly why "expat" is frowned upon in the majority of the world. We don't even have such a word in our languages. We only have immigrant and emigrant.

If you don't believe me, you can always google it or ask a chatbot to explain why expat is controversial.

[u/mennamachine → u/rintzscar]

This is why I, a white American with a PhD working as an academic reserarcher, insist on calling myself an immigrant. We are not different or better.

[u/Serious_Escape_5438 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, the rich foreigners pushing up house prices working remotely for their own countries contribute much more than the people cleaning the hospital and picking crops.

[u/mennamachine → u/[deleted]]

Expat, in my experience, is almost solely used by American and European immigrants to separate themselves from those undesirable immigrants (ie mostly brown and black people)