How medical advice differs in other countries. (Lighthearted but perplexing)

[KnopkaPixie]

The other day I was behind a woman in the queue at a pharmacy here in France. She had oral thrush. The pharmacist took quite a while talking to her about her treatment and the various medications she'd been given by the doctor then went into the general advice section of the lecture. The most important thing was not to eat, "Trop salé." (Too salty.)

I thought, "Pardon?" Surely it's the other way around, nothing too sugary and yeasty? It bothered me so I googled and sure enough at least in the English results - sugary and yeasty were to be avoided.

This happens all the time. I've heard an awful lot of strange medical advice in France over the years and the folk remedies of my Russian ex boyfriend for various illnesses were quite bizarre too. Putting your head over the boiling potato water to cure a cold because the vitamin c evaporated into the steam was a good one.

Have you ever been given strange medical advice abroad?

This thread is kind of inspired by the post about the Germans opening their windows all the time for "Luften"

On the other hand, if you're not a Brit, what are our bizarre medical beliefs/practices?

It's the Davina effect. We tend to medicalise the menopause in the UK.

Don't agree. Quite a few of us who have unpleasant symptoms manage to get HRT for them to enjoy a reasonable quality of life. Many more women don't as they don't realise what the problem is and end up on fistfuls of other drugs or suffering. Or because their GPs decide the discredited 2000s research should be believed.

The Davina Effect idea is interesting, because she actually points out that being on the pill is worse for women than HRT in most cases. Updating female knowledge on hormones that gets dismissed isn't a negative. However I do think UK is too slow at diagnosing deficiencies - iron, B12 for eg and they should be treating more women with these in the first instances - our boundaries for correct levels are vastly different to a lot of countries and I think this may mean more women feel worse in UK and go onto HRT as a result.

I lived in France for 9 years. A land of extremes! You either get chucked a load of homeopathic stuff that doesn’t work or a whole bag of prescriptions. There’s no in between. Saying that, I was VERY impressed when I had my wisdom teeth removed there. They had been troubling me for a while so when it was decided that I wanted them removed it was an immediate appointment with the anaesthetist and surgeon. We all just got our diaries out and booked the appointment for three weeks hence. I was put under GA and got them all removed in one shot as a day patient in hospital. I was then prescribed antibiotics on departure to speed the healing process, as well as strong painkillers. Brilliant from start to finish.
Friends who had babies there, though, were hospitalised for 5 days even for totally textbook births. Would have driven me crazy!! It’s also a near-automatically medicalised process there though: flat on your back, feet in the stirrups, and shut up while we give you this compulsory epidural and episiotomy. No thank you!!

However, I have now lived in the Netherlands for 7 years and had both my babies there. I had amazing continuity of care. The same midwife did all my scans (of which there were many) and delivered both of my babies. Care is entirely midwife-led and I didn’t see a doctor for the entirety of either of my pregnancies. Had baby #1 in hospital and I was given the option to stay overnight (was in a lovely room with my own ensuite) or go home. Since I felt well I chose to go home. Makes a difference though when you have the kraamzorg (maternity assistant) service in the Netherlands, where someone visits you for 3 hours a day, every day, for a week after the baby is born, to check you (stitches, temperature, diastasis recti etc) and baby (temperature, cord, poos etc) and to help you look after baby. They’ll also do household chores, collect any older children from school etc and make sure you rest!! You’d pay a lot of money for that in the U.K. but in NL it’s totally standard care. I also had an unplanned home birth with my second and the midwife just took it all in her stride…home births are also very normal here and are helped by the delivery of the kraampakket during pregnancy which contains bed raisers, plastic sheets for the bed, dressings, rubbing alcohol etc…in short everything you could possibly need! Helped by it being a very small flat country with plenty of hospitals should you really need to be rushed there.

The insurance system is much simpler in France though…just standard or enhanced packages (includes just some things, or everything). Cheaper too IMO than the Dutch system which is totally bespoke but involves you picking everything you think you’ll need for the coming year (as if you have a crystal ball!!). I find the system here overly complex TBH.

Or maybe its recognised that many women are struggling through the menopause for no good reason.
After all no one makes a woman take it. Its entirely voluntary.

From a woman who started the menopause 10 long and arduous years ago and still aching and having hot flushes that stop me in my tracks, still barely sleeping and the tiredness is beyond compare.

But davina came out with her paid for promotion of the menopause after my meno started. And I'm no longer allowed HRT.

My pet theory is that pre menopause being a thing, many women were locked up in institutions at about the time menopause started for them. It wasnt seen as a natural progression for women, more they were disturbed and had to be locked away lest they killed all the men. <<<jk

I had great fun in my teens on holiday in Spain. My girlfriend and I had been sitting in a bar on theRamblas, eing chatted up by 2 gorgeous hunks. I had a horrible throat so they said we should pop into a bearby chemist. I didn't know luchSpanish back then sojust smiled a lot. We went back to the bar and I asked for a glass of water aand theyshoed me into the loo. I just swallowed the gargantuan pill and drank a lot of water. That was in 1967 and I met up with one of the gorgeous hunks in 2017 andtold him all about it. He said he and his friend couldn't understand why I wanted a glass of water. Pessaries are used a lot where I live in France for a hist of things. They actually get leds around far quicker than via the stomach.

I'm in Germany at the moment and have just heard the 'sitting on a cold surface gives you a UTI' tale again. Also children under 11 years old seemingly having to wear a woolly hat between October and April, regardless of temperature. In the UK, 'plenty of fluids and rest' seem to cure almost everything.

I'm in Germany at the moment and have just heard the 'sitting on a cold surface gives you a UTI' tale again.

They're wrong. It's piles they're risking, not a UTI. Sitting on a radiator also risks piles.

However, going out in a cropped top so your kidneys get cold - you'll probably die from the UTI that would trigger.

What I've noticed about the UK:

• Bio/non bio laundry detergent, abroad, 99% of detergent are bio
• Regarding allergies, lots of food restrictions/allergies around us - not sure what the main factor here is, I did read the peanut study that said fewer Israeli children had peanut allergy compared to Jewish children in the UK
• Paracetamol being so cheap and widely available, when you go abroad most countries sell it in pharmacies and not in the checkout aisle at the local supermarket. It's almost a running joke amongst expats in the UK that if you call the GP saying your leg fell off, they'll tell you to take paracetamol

Food allergies are thought to be because of previous weaning advice to avoid peanuts

A cousin who lives in the Netherlands says access to physiotherapy is brilliant and pretty much indefinite, access to other things not quite as good.

If UK GPs were allowed to make referrals to specialists without having every one scrutinised by the commissioning group, we might feel like we had better access. Tbh though an experienced GP can diagnose a lot of things quite effectively in a phone call... it's just not much fun,.quite stressful for everyone, and misses out the ancillary benefits of having an actual hunan interaction.

Not my experience of childbirth in France at all - nor my friends. Few home births, but I know no one who had pain relief forced on them, including my SIL who lives in La France Profonde. Neither of us chose to have any, and the five days in the maternity post birth were brilliant. Also a choice. Never heard of that no salt for thrush thing!! Homeopathy is no longer reimbursed, thankfully, and therefore much less likely to be prescribed. The only friends I know who swear by it are Scottish and N. American. (& my French MIL, ofc) I’ve never been left languishing on a waiting list here, blood test results arrive the same day, painkillers are indeed ridiculously expensive, but easily prescribed, bedside manner sometimes may leave something to be desired by those of us from different cultures, but has improved somewhat along with language skills. Overall, nearing retirement, I feel much safer here, despite the current chaos. AND most importantly Oxyboldene is a miracle hangover cure. I never travel back home without supplies for friends and family. 😝

I don't think routine pelvic exams will pick up on much - certainly not going to detect early ovarian or cervical cancer - routine health check ups generally don't pick up much and even the benefits breast screening are still debatable (as some women will have trivial cancers detected and treated, which untreated would have spontaneously resolved).

Focusing on high risk groups/ scenarios is much more beneficial health wise otherwise we risk generating more health anxiety, unneeded invasive tests (which can cause direct physical harm) as well as wasting money.

Which is one of the reasons survival rates for cancers are comparatively low in the UK. I promise you no doctor looks at our bits as anything other than meat, there’s nothing exciting in gynaecological exams. Get yourself checked, annually.

Of course a pelvic ultrasound picks up early stage cancers more reliably than waiting until you’re in A&E with advanced symptoms. This whole thinking of whether screening is advantageous or a waste of time and money is all very well, but the conclusions reached in the UK are only a function of a defunct healthcare system. If the NHS weren’t so poor and dysfunctional, UK doctors wouldn’t need to pretend that screening and prophylaxis are unnecessary fripperies for the ‘worried well’ (what sort of expression is that even - as if we should only see a doctor once we’re at death’s door).

First, I opted out. Second, annually isnt an option here unless you've had signs.

I care not what a dr thinks of my bits, but calling me/it meat is so dehumanizing.

I was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease a few years ago, and spent a week in ICU. Addison’s is a “salt-wasting” illness, so I need to have extra sodium in my diet as my body doesn’t hold onto it like normal. It felt very surreal being given ready salted crisps ‘on prescription’ by the nurses!

but the conclusions reached in the UK are only a function of a defunct healthcare system. If the NHS weren’t so poor and dysfunctional, UK doctors wouldn’t need to pretend that screening and prophylaxis are unnecessary fripperies for the ‘worried well’

This is especially glaring in women's healthcare. Why aren't women routinely being told their breast density after a screening mammogram? It impacts both their breast cancer risk as well as the efficacy of mammography itself. There's really no move towards individual breast cancer risk assessment whatsoever. Family history is only one piece of the puzzle but it's the only thing GPs seem to have any awareness of.

Not shocking I suppose that when you're rationing resources women's health and well being isn't prioritized.

What would you do with information about breast density scores?
And women are told if they have particularly dense breasts as mammograms are more difficult.

Breast density is an established cancer risk factor and knowing where you stand regarding BC risk can guide your choices regarding screening, hrt, etc.

Some women with dense breasts might benefit from additional screening modalities as a significant percentage of cancers will be missed on mammogram. It's information regarding your health that you are entitled to and the UK is an outlier in not routinely providing this information.

@pimlicopubber

Regarding allergies, lots of food restrictions/allergies around us - not sure what the main factor here is, I did read the peanut study that said fewer Israeli children had peanut allergy compared to Jewish children in the UK

One of the popular snacks for babies and young children in Israel is Bamba , a peanut puff snack. A bit like a wotsit but instead of cheese it's peanuts. I really like them but they're harder to find in the UK unless you live somewhere with a Kosher supermarket or kosher aisle in Sainsbury's or wherever

What a horrible way of putting it. Do you really think telling women they are viewed as pieces of meat will encourage them to have exams?

As someone who finds smears excruciating being thought of as a piece of meat doesn’t make me inclined to any exams.

I don't know if they are kosher but Lidl do something similar for their Americam weeks called IIRC Peanut Flips they are amazing.

That's not right. Vaginal creams and pessaries are not considered HRT. Topical in this instance refers to HRT that is applied to the skin, like oestrogel.

The NCI recommendation is every 3 years from the age of 21.

https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/screening

that’s an official US government website saying you do not need annual cervical cancer checks. Or at age 18.

which would make me suspect any private doctor saying you need annual checks is more about claiming off the insurance.

The NHS says it is a type of HRT

https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/hormone-replacement-therapy-hrt/vaginal-oestrogen/about-vaginal-oestrogen/