Originally Posted by lindabhat
I'm going to by flying Alitalia to Asia next month. I've always carried a bottle or two of water in my carry-on, due to a history of cancer (surgical removal of salivary gland and head/neck radiation). The FAs never bring enough water for my condition. Often they don't respond to pages, and if the plane sits on the runway a long time or the flight is turbulent, I can't get to the galley or the bathroom to get more water. I have called Alitalia and my travel agent to ask if I can bring aboard an empty bottle. I don't get any straight answers from them, but the general consensus is no. I thought I might try the empty bottle anyway, since the worst that can happen is it will get thrown away.
I would rather bring my own water than deal with dirty airplane water and unhelpful flight staff. I am a pharmacist and can easily generate a prescription label for just about anything. I am thinking of labeling an amber prescription bottle for water - but Rx bottles are awfully small. Has anybody had experience with a regular 500 ml or 750 ml water bottle with Rx label on it?
It really depends on the local rules of the airports you are transiting. For example, most airports will let you through with any liquids that are prescription medications as long as there is a prescription label attached to it. However, the BAA has specifically banned even prescription liquids in sizes greater than 50mL. (from what I understand this is cummulative as well) So if you have to go through a BAA controlled airport, then it doesn't matter if it is a prescription or not you are not getting more than 50mL through. Which I think is ludacrisly low amount of "prescription" medication as this is 1.7oz, and most dispensing is done in larger volumes. I cannot imagine being on a long flight, say 30+ hours and not having access to all of your meds.
As for printing your own labels as a pharmicist, the only thing that I would recommend is that, if possible, you make sure that the dispensing pharmacist is not yourself. I doubt the normal TSA screener would actually look at that, but a foreign one very likely would, especially if they do not speak English. Also if you do print a label for water or other OTC products, use the chemical names. (but you knew that already).
On a side note, I am starting to wonder if the number of "prescription" OTC products coming through the screening point could possiblly lead to backlash from DHS/TSA resulting in something like the obscene BAA rules.