[Aurornis]

You can get basically any medication or vaccination you want in the US as long as you can find a doctor to write the prescription.

We even have anabolic steroids that were approved for muscle wasting in cancer patients, but if you can find a doctor willing to write the prescription and a pharmacy that won’t question it, anyone can have pharmacy grade Anavar for the gym, completely legal. In theory the doctor writing the prescription is putting their license at risk, but enforcement is so lax that there are “anti-aging” clinics all over that will prescribe testosterone and Anavar to anyone with a credit card.

So with a documented history of shingles you should have no problem getting a prescription written. It would be worth a quick check with your insurance company because it might even be covered if your doctor will fill out the form and attach evidence of the past diagnosis.

[dataflow]

> You can get basically any medication or vaccination you want in the US as long as you can find a doctor to write the prescription.

Is that not usually true in other countries?

[dboreham]

I doubt you need a prescription for most vaccines. Typically there's some sort of guidelines that might say normally given to over 55 years old, but there will be some wiggle room due to other hard to prove preconditions such as family history of xxx or sensitivity to yyy. You say you have one of those things and Costco or the public health dept. will give you the vaccine no questions asked. For example when the COVID-19 vaccine was rolled out it was supposed to be for older people, but also people with various other (not easy to test for) preconditions such as asthma. So everyone who wasn't an anti-vaxxer developed asthma.

Medications are different. Need prescription for that, although $$ and a zoom call can solve that problem.

[jandrewrogers]

There is a large industry in the US that specializes in catering to people that want medications, vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments that are outside the recommended standard of care that medical insurance or public health systems cover. You have to pay for these services directly but the market is competitive so the cost is quite reasonable.

A doctor must sign off on these but that step is mostly performative outside of some narrow exceptions. My impression is that this type of medical care is much more accessible in the US than most other developed countries.

[Aurornis]

That's it.

Some countries are even more open. You can walk up to pharmacies in some countries and ask for most medications without a prescription. Up until 10-20 years ago you could walk into pharmacies in some countries and get abusable drugs, too, but that became enough of a problem that they cracked down on it.

The unique thing about the US is that we have access to almost everything first, and you can find a doctor willing to prescribe it to you if you look hard enough. In many other countries doctors don't want to stray far from the government prescribing guidelines. You may also not be allowed certain treatments unless your doctor can prove you meet the government requirements.

In the US, the enforcement is on the backend, if at all. There have been many cases of doctors getting the bright idea of turning their prescription pad into a money printer and writing prescriptions for scheduled medications to anyone willing to pay cash. Some of them make millions before the DEA catches up and goes after them. The smarter ones have moved into spaces where the enforcement brings less attention. Prescribing opioids is out, but I can't even turn on the radio without getting ads for doctors who will write me a prescription for testosterone to "get an edge in the gym".

[InsideOutSanta]

Yes, it is. In my experience, in most cases, your regular doctor will prescribe things if they are not dangerous even if they aren't recommended.

[nicoburns]

In some countries, getting that prescription is much harder (unless you have the medical condition the medicine is intended/licensed for)