Travelling with medication

If you are taking anti-HIV drugs you’ll need to carry them with you when you travel. Customs officials often take a particular interest in medicines - during the long-standing US HIV travel ban, the discovery of anti-HIV drugs in the luggage of people with HIV was the reason why many people were refused entry and deported.

Some people get around the risk of travelling with their medication by taking the following action:

• They send their medication in advance. But make sure it arrives before you travel. Remember, post can be inspected by customs.

• Obtain medication in the country you want to travel to. However, this may not always be possible - or it could be extremely expensive.

If you carry your medication with you, have an answer ready about what the drugs are for. Some people say they are for cancer treatment. But remember, there’s a reasonable chance that a customs official will have seen anti-HIV drugs before and won’t be easily fooled. It might be helpful to have a letter from your doctor saying that the medicines you are carrying are for the treatment of a chronic medical condition and are for personal use. Make sure the letter doesn’t mention HIV.

It might be very difficult, or even impossible, to get supplies of your medication once you've left home - even if you are just taking a short trip in the UK or Europe. So make sure you take enough of all your medicines with you to last the full duration of your trip. It might be wise to count out your medicines before you travel and to take a few additional doses just in case you get delayed.

Travelling across international time zones is likely to have implications for the time you take your medication. There are three options you may wish to consider. These include continuing to take your medicines at your UK time - but this could mean that you have to take your doses at inconvenient times. Another option is to gradually adjust the time you take your medicines, from UK time to the time in the country you are visiting. A third option might be altering your dose time to fit in with the time zone of the country you are visiting, but this could mean that there are some long intervals between doses as you adjust. It might be wise to talk over your plan with a doctor or pharmacist before you travel.