Non-prescription Anti-Inflammatory?

[mystieus]

Is this a fact? I looked and looked!

* Advair
* Aerobid
* Asmanex
* Azmacort
* Flovent
* Pulmicort
* Symbicort
* Qvar

These are all prescription.. are there any Anti-Inflammatory Asthma medication I can buy without a prescription?

[gcsmithjr]

There are no anti-inflammatory medications for asthma that are available without a prescription - most of them are relatively new and are still covered by patents so they're expensive but, given the seriousness of asthma and the need to be under the care of a doctor to help manage it, it's probably unlikely that any of them will ever be available over-the-counter.

[mystieus]

Most of these anti-inflammatory medications been on the market going on 10 years now. And they seem safe enough to release a weaker version over the counter.

[gcsmithjr]

I don't think it has anything to do with the safety of the medications - I think it's because asthma is a serious condition and needs to be treated by a doctor - even albuterol is only available by prescription (just like there are antibiotics out there that have been on the market for decades, are now generics, but still must be prescribed by a doctor).

I think the same is true in most other countries - I'm not aware of anyplace that allows asthma medications to be dispensed without a prescription - they'd sure be cheaper if that was the case.

[acprivra]

I agree, if there were over the counter controller(steriod) medications, people could be self-diagnosing and treating asthma without the care of a doctor.

Additionally, it it inconvenient that there are not more generic drugs for many of our medications. The reason for this has to do with patents. New drugs carry patents for a number of years (I think it is 10). During that time, the chemical formulas for drugs only belong to that company. The reason for this is that it costs millions of dollars to develop new drugs. It wouldn't be fair if a company developed a drug, but then another company could just take the formula and sell it for less - the laws are created to balance the cost of developing the drug.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, but it is logical. I, too, wish there was something we could do about the cost of drugs. I just calculated it today - if I didn't have prescription drug coverage, my monthly prescriptions would cost over $900.00.

Best of luck to everyone who is dealing with the inconvenience of outrageously expensive prescription drugs.