How walking into Mexico and getting my blood pressure medicine saved my butt

No ####, there I was at the Mexican border.

Juarez.

Murder capitol of the world.

And I needed to get some pills into the United States...

OK, that intro was waaaaay over-dramatic, I'll admit.

You have probably heard of a thing called "medical tourism." Americans go to a Third World country to obtain medicine or medical services more cheaply or conveniently than they can obtain in the United States. There are some great services like Med Republic Dot Com who will book stuff like that for you, but some things...well, you can just walk over the border.

I did that a while back with some blood pressure pills. And it saved my trucking career, or at least kept my career from going off track.

I joined this forum to share helpful information, to interact, and to receive helpful info. So this is a story I wanted to share when I made the decision to join.

I'm not advocating "go out and do this." I'm sharing my story and you can be the judge. But it might save your butt when the chips are down and you're hard up against the wall.

A while back, the date for my DOT medical exam came upon me suddenly. Though I had a prescription for a blood pressure medicine, and I had been taking my medicine as instructed with great success, and cutting down on salt and red meat and trying to lose weight and all that, well...

Dealing with the VA is a freaking nightmare. I mean, once you get the services you're seeking, it's pretty good...just getting to that point is a bureaucratic nightmare. Without getting into a lot of tedious detail about how it happened, I ran out of my medicine far from where I could easily get more and the exam was upon me...

Without the blood pressure pills that I had been prescribed, I was in a fix. The medicine I take is called hydroclorothiazide and it's a diuretic. It helps you pee out water and salt, which lowers your blood pressure. But that doesn't mean you can get away with eating more salt. You should lower your salt.

But I was stuck. I didn't have a supply of my prescribed pills. I had just run out a few days before, and the DOT exam was upon me.

Luckily, I was near the Mexican border, and I had my passport in my possession. Over the years I've learned adequate Spanish for most basic purposes, and sometimes I can even carry on a conversation about more abstract topics...politics, religion...so, yeah, I was pretty confident about getting the medicine in Mexico.

Not my first time at the medical tourism rodeo, let me tell you. I get SOME of my dental done in Mexico. And a few years ago, in summary, I needed an MRI and it was WAY CHEAPER in Tijuana. Also, in Mexico it's almost always same-day service. Sometimes it's the very next day, but usually you can get things the same day, the same HOUR.

Eyeglasses. I also get eyeglasses across the border. Not for reading (duh!) because those can be bought at the drug store. I mean to see longer distances, even though I am well within a passing range for driving without wearing glasses.

So...I walked across the border, I went into a pharmacy ("farmacia") and with a little Spanish and a little bit of information on my phone, I was able to get my medicine instantly. One bottle, a dollar twenty. Which was about 22 pesos. I wanted to take a pill immediately, but I figured I'd better keep the bottle sealed for when I crossed back over the border.

In Mexico, pharmacists can prescribe most things you need a doctor to prescribe in America. They do it based on your word and a little discussion of your symptoms. You say, "I need some of this" and they give you some of it. But I asked the pharmacist about getting a piece of paper, a prescription from an actual doctor.

"Doctora." See how easy Spanish is? "Pharmacia." "Doctora." Paper is "papel."

I mean, I have a prescription for the stuff in the United States...but how do I prove that at the point of entry? The prescription is not on my phone or in my email. It might be within some stupid online VA system that I supposedly can access easily, but in fact I do not use because it's cumbersome and trying to figure it out...I give up.

And talking to my doctor...OK, that requires dealing with the VA system. I had the prescription, somewhere, but I just needed the ACTUAL MEDICINE. I felt completely justified and legal about what I was doing, but I'd never brought medicine across the border before and I was a little nervous. I wanted to line up my ducks.

The pharmacist pointed to a doctor's office next door, and told me I could get a prescription there if needed. But, he assured me, there was no need. He knew what medicines were questioned at the border, and which ones were not. This medicine...no. Nobody was going to get excited about a diuretic used to treat blood pressure. (Note the spelling for the medicine is a little different on the bottle, pictured below, because it has the Spanish version of the name for the medicine)

I decided to trust what the pharmacist told me. And sure enough, the border security didn't even ask to look at the medicine. They were more concerned about having me pay $3 tax at the little booth run by the state of Texas, for the bottle of liquor I'd purchased. (Sotol with snake meat, but that's another story for another day)

I had to bite the pills in half to get the proper dose, but it's not my first time doing that, either.

I went to the DOT exam. I duly reported all my medicine, etcetera. The doctor raised his eyebrows a little when I fessed up to how I'd resupplied myself with hydroclorothiazide, but it wasn't the first time he'd heard a medical tourism story, and certainly not the worst one he'd ever heard. It's not like I went to get liposuction and came back with the flesh-eating bacteria.

He checked my BP and...I hit the golden number right on the nose.

"Muy bueno," he said, LIKE THAT WAS FUNNY.

OK, it WAS funny.

And THAT...is how walking into Mexico and getting blood pressure pills saved my career...or at least kept me from failing the BP that day, and being in a fix, and having to get myself out of that fix.