Medications

Last night was the first time I had to buy any kind of medication here (a simple antihistamine) and it was a little more difficult than I'd hoped. Not because it was difficult to find, but because it was difficult to discern. It would seem that medications in the Philippines don't have brand names.

It's not that this was some generic, they were all like this. Maybe they only have generics? I suppose that's possible. Even then, I'd expect some branding somewhere. I'm guessing that there's some litigation at work here. That perhaps medications aren't allowed to distract consumers from the actual medicine being marketed.

The problem with that, however, is that I have no idea what's being marketed. I know what Sudafed is. I have no fucking clue what Phenylephrine HCI Chlorphenamine Maleate Paracetamol is. I was close to giving up on the search before I noticed that little oval near the bottom of the packaging (all of the packaging was pretty much the same, by the way) that at least indicated the symptoms this is meant to address. That's at least helpful.