My Story of Online Pharmacy Research

3 years ago, I found myself without a husband and trudging through a bankruptcy all due to a messy divorce. Soon thereafter, I was without insurance for the first time in my life. I thought that I could do without it for a while, until I finished community college and could land myself a paralegal job. But, as it turned out, I started to get very bad migraines, and Ibuprophen wasn’t cutting it. That’s when a friend told me about a drug called Imitrex. I did some research and found that it seemed right for me, so decided that I was going to give it a try. The only problem was that I didn’t have a doctor's prescription for it; in fact, I didn’t even have insurance to afford a doctor visit (imagine how expensive it would have been for the x-rays, etc.)

That’s when I, like many others before me for various reasons, turned to the Internet for answers. I, of course, found a slew of online pharmacies that had what I was looking for, but most of them were over-priced. Adjusting my search query, I added inexpensive to my criteria of online pharmacies for which I was surfing. A large number of these came up as well, and upon first inspection, I immediately felt uneasy. Most were horribly designed and had membership fees. Also, being able to contact them seemed a challenge. I searched and searched until I found one that I felt semi-comfortable with. As things turned out, my drug did not get delivered to me from the online pharmacy that I choose and I ended up getting bombarded with emails. It did not take long before I filed a compliant with the BBB (Better Business Bureau).

Still, that filing did not satisfy me. So, in conjunction with my studies and work (by this time I had finished school and gotten a job in Arizona at a Consumer Legal Aid Society), I decided to do some heavy-handed research on Internet pharmacies, particularly foreign internet pharmacies. What I found was a mass conglomerate of organizations that ranged from fly-by-night style businesses that steal from people to legitimate organizations that just didn’t have the technology, know-how, or money to create a pleasing Web site. Thus, in this blog, I decided to write what I learned about my research regarding how to at least find what you are looking for from a trustworthy site. The best I can hope for is that it helps you make a better, more informed decision.

Thanks,

Amy O’Hare