Shipping Benadryl from the US to Scotland.

May 19, 2010 7:58 AM

What's the best way to ship 5-10 boxes of Benadryl from the United States to Scotland?

Apparently Benadryl (Dye Free) are not as available/not the same in Scottland as they are in the US. My sister-in-law, who lives in Scotland (and cannot travel back to the States anytime soon) has awful allergies and this is the only medicine that helps her. I'd like to help her out by sending her as much Benadryl as possible. I'd use that Amazon link except the shipping to Scottland is kind of ridiculous ($44).

Is my best option really to buy as many boxes as a store will sell me and then just ship them myself? Is this legal? My understanding is that I'd only be able to buy a box or two at one store, so I'd likely have to go to multiple stores (I'd like to send her a bunch so she'll be set for a while).

posted by soplerfo to Law & Government (7 answers total)

It doesn't look like that medicine has any psuedoephedrine in it, so I don't see why you'd be restricted to buying only one or two at one store. The only OTC allergy medicine that has purchasing restrictions on it contains pseudoephedrine. (i.e. Sudafed).
posted by dortmunder at 8:03 AM on May 19, 2010

Best answer: I just recently traveled to Norway with 12 packages of OTC allergy meds, and though I'm sure this is probably why my bags were inspected, I had no problems. I don't know how it would be a problem, as long as it's not pseudoephedrine.
posted by RedEmma at 8:08 AM on May 19, 2010

Response by poster: Ah, fantastic - I'm happy to be misinformed!
posted by soplerfo at 8:09 AM on May 19, 2010

Generic Benadryl [i.e. not dye free, but does that part matter] is super cheap at places like Costco and you can buy a lot more at once, like big bottles of 400 pills. I live off the stuff during allergy season. As near as I can tell, it's not a prohibited or restricted item.
posted by jessamyn at 8:10 AM on May 19, 2010

Diphenhydramine (the active ingredient in Benadryl) is available over the counter in the UK, most commonly as a sleep aid. Benadryl sold in the UK mostly uses non-sedating antihistamines like acrivastine. Anyway, tablets like those shouldn't contain any dyes, so your best bet may be for her to buy diphenhydramine tablets and take the appropriate dose (e.g., those tablets are 50mg each, whereas the capsules you linked are 25mg each, so unless she normally takes two she'll need to cut them in half).
posted by jedicus at 8:18 AM on May 19, 2010

What jedicus said. Tell her to look for sleeping pills such as NightAid, Nytol, etc. with 25mg of diphenhydramine HCl as the active ingredient. It's sold at Boots under the name Sleepeaze.
posted by bgrebs at 12:08 PM on May 19, 2010

Thirding jedicus and bgrebs. For some reason diphenhydramine is far cheaper as a sleep aid than an allergy medication.

It should be noted that diphendydramine is occasionally used at high doses as a recreational drug, mostly, I hope, by those without access to anything better. It will make you hallucinate if you take enough of it, though it's not exactly fun. If someone inspecting the package were to be aware of this there's a very slim chance you might have an issue. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, it's pretty unlikely to be an issue.
posted by Jawn at 12:41 PM on May 19, 2010