TOPIC:

Thanks Chapel.

Hi Kevin,
Thank you for the info. Did you see Dr. Freeman on line at GP2U? I have been trying to book an appointment on line with him but there are no slots to choose from. I am also contacting GP2U. Fortunately, I am planning on going to Au at the end of Jan, so plenty of time.

May I ask if you started your meds in Australia or did you take them to the US?

I am an outdoor person, and taking a career break so a trip to Tasmania has some appeal to me. Kind of a combination therapy,

In terms of taking meds into Hong Kong, I found this on the government site.

"Pharmaceutical products and medicines imported in the personal baggage of a person entering Hong Kong and which are accompanied by him and in a reasonable quantity for his personal use may be exempted from licensing requirement."

So looks like no problem carrying it in. My experience for the past 15 years has been that at least for someone with my profile, HK customs has had no interest at all in me or my suitcase(s). I will research the shipping aspect but from what I have read already, I suspect that it would be difficult to get a straight answer from the gov. This is a "don't ask don't tell" type of jurisdiction. I will keep researching the shipping question as surely some of the expats living here long term receive medicines from home country.

For me, I am keen on a trip to Australia.

Thanks a lot to everyone.

im not kevin but our stories are similar, we got our meds from same pharmacy and we both came back carrying, same deal, i didnt say anything, they didn't ask anything..i did declare the boomerang and t shirts though...Oh, and yes, i popped my first meds the first day I got em, I figured that way if i had a conversation I could say, "hey mate***, wth, im already on treatment with this medication and you're gonna take it away?"

***I use the term "mate" with no actual claim of genuine Australian righteousness to use it, its just fun as hell!

Hey Honker

Welcome to the forum, sometimes Dr Freeman gets booked out, as you can imagine it is a pretty popular clinic atm. Don't worry a consult and script is the least of your worries down here and there are a couple of hundred GP's writing scripts/consults etc. However, I'm sure you will get to see James soon. Talk to admin at GP2U and advise of your situation, they will sort something out. It is not illegal for US citizens to come to Australia, pick up your meds, touch the harbour bridge and go home. Perfect legal and many have done/and are doing just this. It generally takes about 3 weeks from money transfer to pharma to testing and pick up in tassie. So not too much too coordinate really. Em

Hi 2b,

Thanks. I have lots of Aussie friends in Hong Kong and they have a special language which I have been learning. Very funny words for things.

Did you go to Tasmania?

It is great to have such good guidance in this process.

Hi Emilio,

Thanks for the advice and support. Did you go to Tasmania to pick up your meds? I know it isn't necessary to go to Australia, but I likely will not be going to the US right away as I have been living in Asia for 15 years. I am taking a career break so thinking to travel around Australia a bit and maybe go to New Zealand while doing the meds. Do you think the plan to travel is realistic? How did you feel in the first weeks after you started taking the meds? This info might be somewhere in the forum already but I am just learning my way around so forgive me if my questions have been asked and answered. I am interested in your stories. all of you.

Best
Kathy

Hi honker,

Think Em's gone offline so I'll try to help.
You don't need to be in Australia to see Dr if you go via GP2U or similar. The consult can happen over net but you will need to have your Thai medical records with all the details so the Dr can diagnose using those and discussions with you. Then you can forward the script, authorisation and payment. You will need to come to Aust to pick up the meds as the club can't legally ship overseas though there are other options that could be suggested. How the meds effect you seems to vary from person to person and how badly the hep itself effects you normally. I'm not sure that I would arrange a 7 day wilderness walk but most seem to cope reasonably well with day to day stuff and working and a relaxed holiday should be fairly easy. I started treatment 3 weeks ago and the first couple of weeks was pretty easy, better in fact than pretreatment. I added ribavarin into the mix last Friday and okay till today when I went for my morning walk and to paraphrase Em "whoa, who turned up the gravity?" Still functioning okay, just takes a little more effort to get around. But expected with the ribavarin which I've had previously.

Thanks a lot. Sorry to hear about the extra gravity. This is very helpful and I have contacted GP2U and waiting for them to come back to help me set up an appointment. One of the nice things about Bumrungrad in Bangkok is that I have digitized records for every year. Blood test results are available within 3 hours and the VL results available within 24 hours. I cannot come down until the end of January so seems plenty of time.

Have you added Ribovarin because of your Geno or because you have received prior treatment?

I noticed that everyone has a description of their condition on the profile but I haven't found the place to enter that information yet. How do I enter my genotype etc.?

Nah, the gravity is fine if it helps me clear the hep. I have cirrhosis and failed prior tx so more difficult to treat and my specialist thinks it will give me a couple of % better chance. In my case every little bit counts.

Go to the profile tab at the top of the screen, click that then click the edit button on the right of the grey bar, enter password twice, save, go to profile information tab and scroll down to signature panel and add what you want. There are also other fields in the profile page that you can edit if you want.

Hi GAJ, ta for the tag and add on, all useful info. Yes you can have a consult with GP2U from there, forward pertinent documents into your GP2U file for docs perusal, get a script, order/funds transfer, wait a couple and then fly in and cure. Em

Hey Honker

Dr Freeman has advised he has slots next week and the other docs can also consult/script for Hep C. Amir is also a great doctor. Em

Thanks Emilio. I saw the openings and have an appointment for next Tuesday so all set. It would be so nice to be rid of this. Seems like a dream.

I did not make it to Tasmania unfortunately, I wanted to see part of barrier reef and beaches so went north, I would like to go back though and see Tasmania and other places...its a really big place.

Sorry for the late reply. I'll make up for it in volume, hehehe.

This site was still fairly new when I made the decision to go and I was in Thailand at the time. The Doctor in Thailand had followed US treatment protocol and prescribed Sof/Led. For reasons as political as anything I really wanted the Sof/Dac instead.

There were other issues going on ... plus I was having occasional bouts of mild brain fog.

1) I had scheduled my non-refundable flight to/from Thailand for six weeks and later discovered that visa-on-arrival was only available for 30 days. It was too late to get a standard visa.

2) To cover that problem I had purchased a side trip to Singapore leaving seven days after my arrival in Thailand and had only scheduled seven nights of initial hotel stay.

3) Then I started getting concerned about how I would source the meds. India only had the Sof. I could get sof/dac or sof/led from China but I've been to China once before and knew I would need a translator there and a good explanation to get the visa, and I didn't have a script for the Dac which I preferred.

4) I was concerned about shipping meds into Thailand to a hotel address and reluctant try.

5) I couldn't get a response from either Greg's contact in Thailand that had Twinvir or from anyone in Bangladesh that might have been able to help go there to pick it up ... and still, I preferred the Dac.

6) The clock was ticking and I had to decide whether to get on the plane for Singapore or do something different.

7) I liked the hotel I was staying in and decided to try for a full month extension which would have given me more time to figure things out ... but then the hotel owner tried to dramatically overcharge me for the long term stay (I already knew the correct price because the desk clerk had already told me.)

The only place I knew for certain I could get the Dac script and the meds was the Buyers Club but I wasn't getting responses to emails there either. For some reason I kept thinking GP2U was only available for Australians and never did try that option.

So ... pissed off at the Hotel owner I got online and rechecked prices to Australia, bought a flight, jumped over to the visa site and worked my way through that, had the desk clerk print out everything for me, burned my non-refundable flight to Singapore, booked a different hotel in Bangkok for one night and then off to Melbourne. Stayed there one night and off to Hobart and the next day I walked into the Dr. Freeman's office totally unannounced ... SURPRISE, I'M HERE!

Because of the way I went about it, it took another 19 days to get the meds ... to rush things I went to Sydney to pick up the Sof from Kingswood ... but I started treatment in Sydney, had no problem carrying them into Thailand or 10 days later into the US.

I've been to Hong Kong three times and never been bothered by customs that I recall. I did have a baggage scanner at departure steal a pair of tweezers though ... geeze, even the US TSA didn't care about those tweezers.