Any experience in refilling a prescription?
 

Has anyone had any experience in getting a prescription refilled?

I often see recommendations on this board about the need for taking prescriptions and a consultawhen travelling to Europe. My only experience involved replacing a broken vial of insulin for my wife which necessitated a visit to a hospital emergency room for a consult with a physician on a Saturday afternoon in the UK. Insulin, incidentally, is non-prescription in the US.

Terrible editing - please ignore "and a consult" after prescriptions. Sorry.

Maybe I'll have better luck on a weekend.

My husband ran out of his blood pressure medication while in Ireland in May (I miscounted), and all we did was take the bottle and pills to a local pharmacy.
The only problem was finding one that had that dose on hand. It took us three tries, but they sold us the pills.
We did not have to get the whole prescription, though as we were at the end of the vacation and only needed a few.

There is no European (or even EU)standard for what's prescription-only, or for the procedures needed to obtain prescription drugs. And there's unlikely to be one for many years.

Travellers sometimes find that just asking at a pharmacy works (especially in continental Europe, where the level of professionalism in pharmacies is exceptional): but the pharmacy will always tell you the easiest way to get a prescription if you need one.

This may not necessarily be an emergency room or GP: the UK now has a chain of NHS walk-in centres, and we once found ourselves sent to a psychiatric hospital for a contraceptive prescription in France.

For what I've never encountered more bureaucracy, or worse medical advice, than I got when losing some pills in San Francisco.

Thank you both.