La Farmacia Mexicana

When I'm traveling abroad I'm every time excited to discover how the drugstores (Apotheke, farmacia) in the country function and, naturally, also to see what you get over the counter. During the first days in Mexico city, I visited a quite big pharmacy near the Zocalo, which resembles a waiting room with a few seats. The patient gets a number and wait for the medicines getting prepared. Boring for the client and boring for the employees!

In many other drugstores, you'll just enter a little shop where you'll face many different products, from soaps to mosquitos spray and normally also medecines. I asked for an anti-itching cream (mosquitos attack!) and received a cream with Crotamiton, a substance first used in Switzerland against scabies and  also with antipruritic properties. Ok, not so bad. Than I asked for sleeping tablets and was first showed tablets with diphenhydramine (like in Switzerland) and also tablets with 3mg Melatonine, heritage of the USA, where you get this hormone for not more than a few dollars. In Switzerland the substance is 6-7 times more expensive and under prescription. The tablets are more recommended for old people. They are actually not so strong and working very individually.

On our trip in Puerto Escondido we also had the chance to see a part of the Apitherapy method. It is used to treat different chronic diseases using honey bee products. We could actually observe a session with a patient suffering from arthritis who was treated with bee stings into the inflamed region. It seems that the venom of the bees has anti-inflammatory properties. 

 Since I'm allergic to bee stings, for me, this kind of medecine would be more than radical! I therefore remained an observer!