Korean pill finder

I love having national health insurance. More accurately- I love having health insurance- period. For the most part I have had pretty positive experiences with health care here. Except for this last one- but that's for a different post. 2 sinus infections and the bimonthly refill of my prescription steroid allergy meds have been treated excellently. For my non-prescription allergy medicine, brand name Zyrtec in the US, I just took the empty bottle to the pharmacy and they give me boxes of cetrizine (the active ingredient). 세티리진 염산 in Hangul which Romanizes to 'Setirijin hydrochloric' on the box. Costs about the same as CVS brand cetirizine in the USA.

But- what I don't like is that you get these strips of medicine pouches filled with various pills and have absolutely no idea what they are. For the 2 sinus infections I just took them. It was fine. I felt better within half an hour and the infections cleared up in days.

This last prescription was different. I was injured. The meds made me a little high and a little drowsy. The last 10 days have been final presentations and then finals- all oral. And I have about 150 students. There was no way I was going to space out during 50% of their grades for the semester so I just didn't take the morning dose for the first couple of days. Then, after a discussion with my awesome neighbor (awesome because he ran small errands, called me taxis, and brought me food! Damn crutches) where he said one of the 4 pills was probably an antibiotic, because they always prescribe antibiotics, I decided to FIGURE IT OUT! Mostly because I am anti- antibiotic unless absolutely necessary. Also because I've been pretty immobile. Bad thing about being injured is that, well, I'm injured. Good thing is I'm bored due to physical inactivity so I'm actually studying Korean- and blogging. And I did figure it out. I know this is a common complaint for us waygooks over here, so- here is how to figure out what all those rainbow colored little pills are.

1. The pills are listed, in Hangul, on your receipt from the pharmacy.

2. Learn Hangul. You live in Korea- it will make your life a lot easier to at least learn the basics. And, I will admit, I read it like a second grader and type and write it like I'm in kindergarten- but in this case your just copying.

3. Use your computer at work or convert your computer to be able to type in Hangul. 

Windows-

a. Control panel

b. Clock, Language, and Region

c. Under 'Region and Language' click 'change keyboard or other input methods' a popup will appear

d. Click the 'keyboards and language' tab

e. Click the 'change keyboard' button

f. another popup will appear. It will have a box that says English. Next to that box is a key that says 'add'. Click it. Click the Korean button and then 'add keyboard'.

g. A key will appear on your toolbar. Default will say EN (English) if you click on it you can choose Korean and then use your 'alt' button to switch between languages.

Mac-

Google it

4. Your keyboard is in the Roman alphabet. You can pay to get a new keyboard with both the Roman alphabet and Hangul on it. Or- you can walk to your local novelty/toy/stationary store, probably within blocks of where you live, buy Hangul stickers, Google 'Korean keyboard' and do it yourself .

5. Look at your receipt. There will be a list in Hangul. Each word will end in '정' which means 'tablet'

6. Google the Hangul word.  You'll get search results for sites like  www.druginfo.co.kr/detail/product.aspx?pid=35 you will get a bunch of Hangul- and the active ingredient listed- in English! You might even get an actual picture of the exact pills in your pouches.

7. If you don't know what the active ingredient is- Google that too. 

So- for falling down the stairs in Hongdae, and seriously bruising my leg, I was prescribed

클란자정 active ingredient Aceclofenac

미도캄정 active ingredient Tolperisone (which is supposed to be non-drowsy, whatever)

넥시나 정  I didn't even search this one. It says 'antacid' right one the page. Smart Koreans- how did they know pain killers mess with my stomach?

바리다제 정 active ingredient Streptokinase

This entry sorta sounds like an ad for Google. What can I say? I use Google. Except when I'm forced to use IE due to my Korean bank and university website only working on IE. I do not know how well this will work with other search engines. 

For my western  friends- you may not be able to even see the Hangul unless you enable it on your computer. The same directions for changing your keyboard will also enable your computer to recognize the Hangul characters.