Your guide to buying medications online

Americans spend more time online than people in other countries, with home users averaging 13 hours online per month. Female users accounted for 50.4% of U.S Internet users in May 2000, compared to only 38% in 1996. In particular, the number of women over age 55 who are online users increased 109% during the year.

Looking to buy depression and other related medicines. Get all the useful information here:

Before buying medicines online - do's and don'ts to ensure safe, secure purchasing of medicines online:

Look for easy-to-find and understand privacy and security policies.
DON'T provide any personally-identifiable information (such as social security number, credit card, medical history) unless you are confident that the site will protect them.
For shoppers whose utmost concern is privacy, the benefit of online shopping is indisputable. Instead of dealing with a pharmacist face to face, alongside other customers, online shoppers can submit their prescriptions by fax or have the Internet store's pharmacist call their doctors.
When shopping for medications online at pharmacies, it is obviously worth doing some comparison shopping: who offers the best prices on the specific medications you are interested in, and who offers the best overall cost for your order? Free overnight delivery may be great, but only if the pharmacy offers a sufficient level of discount on the drug itself; likewise, the absolutely cheapest prices on drugs are not very helpful if you have to pay substantially more for delivery.
The quality of online pharmacies varies greatly, much like other online businesses: and free delivery and cheap drug prices are worthless if you never see your money again. The bottom line when searching out cheap drugs from an online pharmacy is: buyer beware!

Savings

An indisputable advantage of shopping online: It's more convenient to compare prices among Internet pharmacies than among the brick-and-mortar kind.

Internet pharmacies say they can offer savings because of the centralized warehousing for fulfilling orders and the efficiencies of scale. Drugstore.com, of Bellevue, Wash., emphasizes savings more than most: The company says it saves its customers 20% to 30% on most prescriptions. One of the site's cost-savings services is an option to sign up for e-mail alerts notifying patients if a generic form of a drug they are taking has been approved by the government.

Comparing Types of online discount pharmacies:

US medicine-only pharmacies: The most well known online pharmacies in the United States supply only medications and require a prior prescription from your own doctor. You must organize and pay for the consultation with your doctor, and you must fax or mail a copy of your prescription to the service concerned.

US online pharmacies offering online prescription: Possibly the most innovative category of United States online pharmacies includes those which provide actual medical oversight of the process, normally incorporating an online medical consultation with a doctor resulting in a so-called 'online prescription'. Pharmacies of this type can offer greater savings when compared to the total price of a medication and a separate face-to-face medical consultation, although they normally carry a much narrower range of medications because doctors will only prescribe certain medicines without seeing a patient face-to-face. They are also very controversial due to the fact that prescribing without a prior physical examination contravenes recommendations published by the American Medical Association; the legal standing of such pharmaceutical ordering services grows more puzzling and uncertain almost by the day.

Canadian Pharmacies: The biggest bargains come from Canada, thanks to government price controls.The Canadian government's prescription drug price controls ensure that Canadian drugs are amongst the cheapest available. Some organizations for retired people living near the border with Canada are even sponsoring bus trips across the Canadian border for people to purchase medications at much lower Canadian prices, and the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota have launched dedicated Canadian pharmacy web sites to help their residents buy Canadian drugs.

Other Foreign Pharmacies: Importing prescription drugs into the United States for personal use may be tolerated at the discretion of individual officials, but it remains technically illegal. If you live within the United States, this stands as probably the best reason for choosing an online pharmacy which is also in the United States. Many people do choose to purchase prescription medications from a Canadian pharmacy, a Mexican pharmacy, or an online pharmacy in another country.

Take Action to Protect Yourself and Other Consumers:

Report problems. If you suspect a site is illegal, do not buy from it. Report the site and any complaints to the FDA.