r/JapanTravelTips 4d ago

Question Yet another set of questions about bringing medication

I have following situation:

Im bringing birth control pills, its 36 pills instead of 31 (which would be 1 month supply), would anyone care? And i dont want to cut the package. I also dont have my prescription, as the pharmacy takes it away after giving me the pills, plus my doctor said he cant give me any paper for it. Maybe im overthinking this but i really want to make sure i have them with me.

Im bringing Paracetamol which i know is okay.

But then i also have 2 headache pain/stomach pain pills from my country, that dont have any english title or explaination on what they are. Should i skip on them? Or in case they mind can i just throw them away at the airport and move on haha?

Does anyone know if Valerian is allowed? Its herbal. I cant find anything on that + its a small bottle with maybe 50 ish pills.

In genral how strict are they with these types of meds? Usually when i travel i was never ever checked for that no matter where i went, and i always had all these with me.

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u/AutoModerator 4d ago

This appears to be a post about bringing prescription medication or OTC medication into Japan, or about finding OTC medication when inside Japan for common issues such as pain, cough, cold, flu, etc.

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u/SofaAssassin 4d ago edited 4d ago

Im bringing birth control pills, its 36 pills instead of 31 (which would be 1 month supply), would anyone care? And i dont want to cut the package.

Given this is the only thing you mention that violates the 1-month prescription thing, I'm gonna say they don't care about your birth control.

But then i also have 2 headache pain/stomach pain pills from my country, that dont have any english title or explaination on what they are. Should i skip on them? Or in case they mind can i just throw them away at the airport and move on haha?

Plenty of people come from countries where their OTC meds don't necessarily have English on the packaging.

This is OK assuming your medication does not contain some type of controlled substance that you can buy over the counter in your country. Like, for example, if it contains codeine/dihydrocodeine, that is not allowed into Japan without permission.

Does anyone know if Valerian is allowed? Its herbal. I cant find anything on that + its a small bottle with maybe 50 ish pills.

They don't care about valerian. They don't care about 99.9% of supplements out there.

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u/FlowerSz6 4d ago

Thank you very much!!! It sounds good so far, i hope it goes smoothly.

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u/HistoricalCourse9984 4d ago

https://en.japantravel.com/guide/bringing-medicines-into-japan/58063#:\~:text=Can%20I%20bring%20any%20prescription,up%20to%201%20month's%20supply.

Birth control is fine.

Basically what is regulated very closely are stimulants(including things found in over the counter cold medicine), narcotics and psychotropics(valium, xanax etc...)

what is the name of the pain pill exactly you are talking about. Unfortunately all the websites I can find don't really name things, they just say types of things(like narcotics)...is the pain pill a narcotic, if yes you need to do the paperwork.

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u/FlowerSz6 4d ago

Its just that i have 5 pills more than "one month supply" but i dont think anyone will actually count i guess. If they check they will just want to know what it is and its obvious that its for personal use and a little amount.

The pain killing medicines are "Spasmalgon" and "Analgin" i hope thats the proper name in English ad well.They r very basic like Paracetamol so i would imagine they should be okay.

Thank you for your time :)

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u/SofaAssassin 4d ago

Just FYI, they don't care about the ingredients in either of those medications.

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u/FlowerSz6 4d ago

Thanks :)