Vitamins/Supplements - what is easily available?

Distilled water info here:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/distilled-water-in-italy-6806c945-7795-4e02-b567-a8d0cbbd3bb7

I would encourage you to take what you need with you if it's really important. This stuff just doesn't take up that much room, and you'll use it up as you go, leaving room for bringing back souvenirs, lol. Check a bag if you have to, it's not the end of the world.

I'm not familiar with benefiber but all others can be found in any Italian pharmacy (farmacia) or the so called 'parafarmacia'. (parapharmacy). A parafarmacia is a bit cheaper. The only difference between the two is that a parafarmacia is not authorized to dispense certain prescription medicines, but both are staffed by licensed pharmacists. Yours are OTC products, therefore a parafarmacia would have them. OTC stuff is generally more expensive in Italy, so if you don't need huge quantities, I would pack just enough for your trip, if you have room for them in your suitcase.
When I'm in Italy and need a pain cream I use VEGETALLUMINA, which I find very effective. But voltaren is also available.

I sympathize greatly as someone who takes calcium (unbelievably heavy) and magnesium multiple times per day. When you add all the pills together, they weigh over 6 lb. for my 4-1/2 month trips. They make it impossible even to contemplate traveling carry-on only.

On an earlier trip I decided not to pack the full quantity of calcium I needed, figuring it would be easy to resupply in France. It was, but what I was sold was very expensive chewable tablets. Perhaps I didn't go to the right place, but after that experience I decided to suck it up and pack everything I need. At least the weight of the suitcase drops a bit as the trip progresses.

Things I've never seen in Europe: Pepto Bismol and zinc lozenges. I've never looked for Immodium there.

Voltaren is higher dosage in Europe. Buy it here.

As for the others, check Amazon.it to see if they exist. Here in France US friends and I have trouble matching up the equivalent fiber laxatives with the US brands.

Magnesium is easy to find, it thirty pills in a baggie doesn’t take up much room.

I'd take the ones you really need but don't take the bottles or jars if you worry about weight. If you can tell the difference as to which pill is which, just put them all together in a large plastic bottle and bring it along.
I don't take as many supplements as you do, but I do take some. I also take 3 prescription medicines and Senna tablets. And I do bring Advil and Tylenol, but I am sure I could find those if I finished my supply.

The three prescriptions go into one pretty small plastic bottle; the Senna tabs have their own bottle, and as I said, I mix the supplements in one larger bottle. No one is going to check your bags and look t your medicines, at least it's never happened to me and I've taken more trips to Europe than I can count (I've had a lot of years to travel!).

And Voltaren, which is an NSAID, I thought. I buy that overseas if I need it. Easy to find. If you think the dose is too high, mix it with Vaseline or some cream...not precise but it would do the job, I hope.

You can buy antibiotics in a pharmacy in Italy w/o prescription, just mentioning that if need arises. (I don't know the law, but I had a mouth/tooth infection last September while in Sicily and the pharmacist sold me amoxicillin.

The Voltaren cream is sold in Italy in two dosages, 1% and 2%.
Sinus rinses are done mainly with salted water (sometimes purified sea water), you can easily find salter water spray cans at pharmacies and also large supermarkets.
Maalox easily available.
Don't count on getting antibiotics without medical prescription. If ekscruchy managed to get them once, I have seen countless times antibiotics being refused without a prescription.

That's interesting about the antibiotics. I was also surprised that I was sold them so easily, with no prescription. I thought I had a dental infection and I went to the small pharmacy in Malfa, on Salina, and told the pharmacist my symptoms and he sold me the Amoxicillin. So is this not the usual in Italy?

I also wouldn't count on getting prescription meds without prescription. However it really depends on the pharmacy, some are really unruly. When my mother was alive sometimes I would buy her meds at a pharmacy near her house without prescription, while in most they would ask me for the prescription for the same meds. My cousin used to tell me that specific pharmacy would probably sell you morphine without prescription if you asked.

There's really no need to use distilled water for sinus irrigation; I had to employ this technique for many years before moving to a dry climate, and salted tap water works perfectly well. Distilled water is difficult to source throughout Europe. But I even routinely use tap water in my CPAP humidifier while in Europe and live to tell the tale.

So is this not the usual in Italy?

Maybe the pharmacy of a small community maybe more lenient, but my nearby pharmacy is quite strict. No later than last week I remember two women being sent back after asking for antibiotics. For amoxicillin I usually ask my GP (this comes almost free with the national health system, there is a co-payment of 2 euros for a 10-pill box); if I have a non-NHS medical prescription (for example, a dentist), full price is charged but still prescription is checked and stamped.

Some pharmacies may be more lenient with customers they personally know. I mean, they can see that in the last five years I have a medical prescription every two months for a drug, they are more likely to give me an extra box if I forget to renew the request.

I remember that in 2019 two Belgian tourists in Florence killed themselves in a hotel room with an overdose of strong painkillers they got from a pharmacy without prescription, mixed with alcohol. The pharmacist had to give some serious explanations to the prosecutor and in the end he got two years probation. All of a sudden, it got quite difficult to get anything from florentine pharmacies without a written prescription. I got trouble for getting antiacids and eyedrops. It lasted several months.

Thanks for all of the replies, very helpful! I forgot to ask about epsom salts - in the event we need it, what is it called in Italy? If cheap and easily available, might just skip a couple things and buy that there instead as it helps. Good to know about the Voltaren - it is an NSAID, but it's topical, so my doc said ok for my tendinitis. They just don't want me taking internally.

In many Asian countries you can walk up to the pharmacy and just buy antibiotics too. Not good, and many places are finally trying to limit that due to valid concerns in the medical community regarding antibiotic resistance. Scary stuff.

Several ways to say epsom salt:

Sale inglese (English salt)
Epsomite,
Sali di Epsom,
Sale amaro (bitter salt)
Or if you want to be a real chemist:
Magnesio solfato eptaidrato
or simply
Solfato di Magnesio