For those of you who have known me for a while, you may have noticed that I started wearing glasses over the past year. Actually, it's not so much that I've started wearing glasses, as I've stopped wearing contacts. Why, you ask!? Well, my old friend allergies came knocking on the door last summer with a gift of allergic conjunctivitis. Much like its contagious cousin - which is caused by a virus, not allergies - it's a stinker of an affliction to get rid of. At first I thought I was having a reaction to a new type of contact lens. When I went back to the US optometrist last June, she flipped my eyelids inside out (yes, they do this on purpose), and diagnosed the problem as conjunctivitis. I had to stop wearing contacts immediately and start taking steroid drops - four times per day, for a month. After said month, I went back to wearing contacts. However, the problem persisted, so I consulted a second optometrist. Same diagnosis, same treatment... same outcome. The second round of steroid drops was no more effective than the first. At this point, the problem is getting a bit more than irritating as I had gotten the job offer for Paris and wanted to get this thing taken care of ASAP. So off I go to a third US doctor - an opthamologist this time - and was again prescribed the same drops. Only this time, I get two bottles instead of one, and am wished a bon voyage et bon courage! Needless to say, it hasn't worked either, and steroid drops are not exactly meant for long-term use. But now we live in France, and it was time for me to experience the best health care system in the world, at least according to the World Health Organization. It was actually shocking to discover the US ranked 37th, tied with Costa Rica. Granted, the last time the WHO ranked countries was in 2000, but my guess is that things haven't changed all that much since then. Maybe the Affordable Care Act will start to make a difference, but these things take time to truly change. Anyway, back to my saga. So after getting a recommendation from a colleague for an opthamologist here in Paris, I mustered the courage to call her office to schedule an appointment. Talk about anxiety - the only thing worse than speaking a foreign language you don't know very well is doing it over the phone. The French doctor diagnosed the same persistent problem, but instead of being prescribed my typical bottle of steroids, I was sent to the pharmacy with a long list of meds. On the left above, you'll find my all-too-familiar bottle of steroid drops from the US. It's small and mighty - but for me, ineffective and potentially damaging to keep using for months on end.
And on the right, you'll find the bag of goodies prescribed here in France. It was the same diagnosis, but what a radically different approach to treatment. I have heard from others here that it is not uncommon to leave a French pharmacy with a bag full of meds for any given ailment. I was also referred to an allergist to see if they could determine what is actually causing the issue in the first place. The last time I had an allergy test I was probably 10 years old; sadly, I'm allergic to most things on Earth, so we'll just have to wait and see how that one goes. Do I think my eye issue will be solved better here in Paris? I have no idea, and this has been a problem for so long that I'm a bit cynical that anything is going to work. Is our medical coverage here better than it was in the US? Absolutely. And we had pretty damn good insurance working for the federal government. Here, it's less expensive, and more flexible. And every time I have been to the doctor (a few times now), I have had about 30 minutes to talk with the doc directly - never with an assistant or nurse. There is even a set rate for a home visit for those on national health insurance. I can't even imagine a doctor offering home visits in the US - I'm sure it happens, but not that I've ever seen. In many ways, this feels like what healthcare should be about - taking time to address the health of the patient, and not worrying about the revenue that can be generated from a specific procedure, or how many people can be rotated through the office in an hour, or by proscribing higher-cost brand-name drugs instead of ones that have generic alternatives (which I discovered happened to me with another medication back in the US). I'm sure there are down sides to every system, but we're at least off to a good start here in France.
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AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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