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Tragically, the supply of ibuprofen we bought the last time we went to the US - in 2017 - is running out now! Ibuprofen is more expensive in Finland and you can only buy 30 tablets of 400mg each at a time, and you can't mail it internationally, but you can bring it in your luggage, so in the past, I have just brought back a bunch of bottles each time I visited the US. (Technically, you can only bring your own medication for personal use, but we've never had a problem.)
The even more tragic part is that my sister was here just a year ago, but I forgot to ask her to bring it. Obviously it would be unwise to go there in the near future now, and I'm not sure if it would be fully safe even for my white middle-class family members to leave the country in case they had trouble going back (although they don't have any travel plans in the near future, because my dad, being quadriplegic, is immunocompromised and air travel is an elevated risk for him, and he's been in and out of the hospital lately).
When I was a teenager and young adult I used ibuprofen heavily for cramps, but in my 30s the severity lessened dramatically and I was often able to skip painkillers or get by with a small dose of paracetamol/acetaminophen, so the supply from our last visit has lasted longer than expected. (The last bottle has an expiration date in 2020, so possibly it is only working by the placebo effect at this point.) Concurrently with the perimenopausal symptoms I've started getting over the last few years, though, the cramps have started to worsen again and a couple of times in recent months I think they've been more painful than when I was a teenager! (But I also can't be sure because it's about 25 years ago.) A few years ago I was advised to try 1000mg paracetamol + 600mg ibuprofen together in case of emergency, and I now typically need to do this a few times per month. And also to buy paracetamol approximately every 1.5 months, because you can't buy more than 30 (500mg) tablets of paracetamol at a time either, and Wax and I both get migraines (not bad migraines by you Migraine Sufferer standards, but they are still headaches)! I've just never happened to bring paracetamol/acetaminophen back in my luggage because (a) I didn't know I could and should use it instead of ibuprofen until I was in my late 30s and (b) until recently there was always a larger bottle of it around leftover from various prescriptions.
Ugh, and I hate big Finnish 400mg ibuprofen tablets, too. They're not nearly as nice as the standard round coated ones you get in the US. And if you buy gel caps you can't break them! Come to think of it, I also don't like the big paracetamol tablets, but I don't have any clear memories of the size and shape of acetaminophen tablets to compare them to. But, honestly, they would have to be fairly awful tablets to be worse than the inconvenience and annoyance of buying them 30 at a time.
The even more tragic part is that my sister was here just a year ago, but I forgot to ask her to bring it. Obviously it would be unwise to go there in the near future now, and I'm not sure if it would be fully safe even for my white middle-class family members to leave the country in case they had trouble going back (although they don't have any travel plans in the near future, because my dad, being quadriplegic, is immunocompromised and air travel is an elevated risk for him, and he's been in and out of the hospital lately).
When I was a teenager and young adult I used ibuprofen heavily for cramps, but in my 30s the severity lessened dramatically and I was often able to skip painkillers or get by with a small dose of paracetamol/acetaminophen, so the supply from our last visit has lasted longer than expected. (The last bottle has an expiration date in 2020, so possibly it is only working by the placebo effect at this point.) Concurrently with the perimenopausal symptoms I've started getting over the last few years, though, the cramps have started to worsen again and a couple of times in recent months I think they've been more painful than when I was a teenager! (But I also can't be sure because it's about 25 years ago.) A few years ago I was advised to try 1000mg paracetamol + 600mg ibuprofen together in case of emergency, and I now typically need to do this a few times per month. And also to buy paracetamol approximately every 1.5 months, because you can't buy more than 30 (500mg) tablets of paracetamol at a time either, and Wax and I both get migraines (not bad migraines by you Migraine Sufferer standards, but they are still headaches)! I've just never happened to bring paracetamol/acetaminophen back in my luggage because (a) I didn't know I could and should use it instead of ibuprofen until I was in my late 30s and (b) until recently there was always a larger bottle of it around leftover from various prescriptions.
Ugh, and I hate big Finnish 400mg ibuprofen tablets, too. They're not nearly as nice as the standard round coated ones you get in the US. And if you buy gel caps you can't break them! Come to think of it, I also don't like the big paracetamol tablets, but I don't have any clear memories of the size and shape of acetaminophen tablets to compare them to. But, honestly, they would have to be fairly awful tablets to be worse than the inconvenience and annoyance of buying them 30 at a time.
