Prescription drugs

[vargtimmen.livejournal.com]

How are Russian prescription drugs named? Are they just transliterations from English like "Ваягра" and "Уелбютрин" or do marketers come up with completely new names for them? If they have Russian brand names, can you tell me what the popular ones are?

Comments

[alon_68]

There is no common answer. Viagra is certainly виагра, but each kind of drug should be searched separately. It depends on its history - where it came from (sometimes it can be non-English speaking country like France or Germany), when they began to use it etc...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Seconded. An American in a Russian drugstore feels him/herself completely lost, because many medications they know have different names - partly because their production is initially licensed from non-English speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland, or France,) or are produced in other countries (most widely, India and Poland,) or are genuine Russian production. One has to know the "real" name of a certain medication (like, not "Aspirin", but acetyl salicylic acid,) to be able to find it in a Russian drugstore. Note that in Russia, unlike the U.S., you need no mandatory doctor's prescription for many medications (Viagra included.) Still, many things have the same names, like ибупрофен.

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

Ибупрофен sounds great. What is it?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Ibuprophen. Anti-inflammation stuff and pain relief, cheap and thus quite popular, though not a very healthy thing itself. Widely spread in the States as well as in Russia.

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

In russian sounds funny))) By sens much more close to viagra))))

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's a bunch of bad jokes about ибупрофен. "Про что, про что?" :)

[im-such-a-slav.livejournal.com]

some of us call it "vitamin I" because it is that good...for reducing the inflammation of joints. not too exciting.

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

I see. But I meant that this word sounds funny in russian. "Ибу про фен" sonds like "I'm fucking about the hairdrier"

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>If they have Russian brand names, can you tell me what the popular ones are

Again, the system of medications trade in Russia differs from that in America. To buy many of the most popular = cheap = locally produced medications, one needs no doctor's prescription - in many cases the doctor just recommends this or that drug, and you go an buy it - sometimes you have a choice between locally made cheap drug, or its direct analog produced in Europe (which costs two or three or ten times as expensive.)

The most popular ones are the most cheap - аспирин, анальгин (the cheapest pain relief stuff,) валокордин and корвалол (cheap heartache normalizers, contain barbiturates and thus restricted to import in most European countries, even if you take it with you for personal use,) парацетамол (anti-fever,) но-шпа (East European-made anti-spasm stuff) and, the all-time favorite, активированный уголь (black tablets of charcoal, good to reduce one's meteorism :)))

[blinkenlight.livejournal.com]

As I heard, valocordin and corvalol are almost illegal in US, and is sold by spammers, etc. And Zelenka is almost unknown there.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Americans use some kind of purple stuff for minor wounds, instead of our green liqiuid :)

[scarlet1983.livejournal.com]

Most medication has different names in different countries doesn't it? Like paroxetine: in the US it's called Paxil, and in the Netherlands it's called Seroxat, in Australia it's Aropax, and in France they call it Deroxat.

[hellga.livejournal.com]

Most medications have different names in different countries even if they are made by the same company and the countries in question speak the same question. US and British names are all different. Ask by generic name if you need an equivalent found - there are compendia that have international names of each chemical entity, and there is a database that lists them, but it is not open access.

[oryx_and_crake]

In your posting, you are assuming that all drugs without exception come to Russia from the English-speaking West and hence all their names have to be transliterated from English or renamed or whatever. This is simply not true. (BTW, there are no bears walking the streets of Moscow, either.)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I tried to explain this to the author in a milder form, but yes, there are no bears still :))

I'm also really interested in what Уелбютрин may be.

[oryx_and_crake]

It's wellbutrin, I think.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what wellbutrin is, anyway :)

[oryx_and_crake]

That's as well, and let's keep it that way :-)

[laertid.livejournal.com]

уелбютрин for a russian sounds really funky -- just like ибупрофен for you :)

[alon_68]

Neither bears nor wellbutrin? Simply unbelievable! :)

[oryx_and_crake]

Уел. Бутрин.
:-)

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! But I saw one in Petersburg! ;)

It's true, a man walking a bear cub on a leash. Of course, as a long-time russophile it made my day, thinking about how I could reinforce stereotypes back in the U.S.... :)

[oryx_and_crake]

(ashamedly) I stand corrected. Now, I only have to wait until someone else comes and tells me he saw a case of wellbutrin walking back and forth on a street in Moscow or Petersburg.

;-)

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

hee hee hee! :)

thanks for the laugh.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

your icon is great!