Private Clinic-meds & acronyms advice pls

[irisnotadaff]

Hi,
Had first tests (bloods, SA, and scan- all ok), so plan on IVF asap. Does anyone know if you can buy the drugs cheaper ‘over the counter’ rather than pay private clinic prescription prices? Is there much difference?

If we have IVF (spent meets egg in a dish) is that called IVF? And so icsi is where the embryos are ‘made’?
And what does FET stand for please?

So much to learn! Thanks.

It's confusing isn't

So IVF is where the sperm and egg are mixed in a dish and the fertilisation is allowed to happen naturally

ICSI is where the embryologist picks one sperm for each egg and injects each egg with the sperm to hopefully fertilise it

FET Means frozen embryo transfer as opposed to a fresh one

Drugs CAN be cheaper - try places like ASDA which pledges to make no profit on IVF medication but some clinics can charge a prescription fee. It can be stressful though sorting it all out yourself and not necessarily worth the saving as if you run out it's your own responsibility

Does anyone know if you can buy the drugs cheaper ‘over the counter’ rather than pay private clinic prescription prices? Is there much difference?

You can’t buy the drugs over the counter as most of them (?all apart from aspirin if you’re prescribed that) are prescription only drugs so can’t be bought over the counter. What you can do though is take your private prescription to a pharmacy other than your clinics pharmacy and pay the charge at a different pharmacy. It’s worth shopping around to see whether an outside pharmacy is cheaper than the one at your clinic and which one is actually the cheapest. People often say Asda is cheapest but if never seemed to be for me.

If it wasn't cheaper at Asda for you EarlGreyT it's because your clinic is charging NICE guidelines prices so good for you! My clinic is the same. I went to Asda and it was the same before the charge my clinic delivery service would have put on it (£55) so I did save a tiny bit. However I actually requested my clinic prescribe me a medication brand not common which meant I had to get it from the clinic delivery service and pay the charge. So in the end I would have stuck to the clinic delivery. If one doesn't make any special requests and it's the usual meds like Menopur, cyclogest, fyramadel etc then Asda is better.

Brilliant thanks for the info.