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?

A doctor recommended that I drank Guinness after I lost a lot of blood in childbirth. I think it contains iron? Anyway, I definitely felt better!

I was always told to eat those raw jelly cubes to improve hair and nails, I'm not sure that works!

I’ve not rtft but aren’t the French obsessed with suppositories?

I've lived in France (Well, Corsica) for 24 years and have never been prescribed a suppository.

As does white pepper!

they certainly have a tea for it.

When my babies were born they were given Fennel tee. They loved it.

Doctors tell you it's a virus to head off the "can i have antibiotics" discussion.

I stayed with a French family in the late 80s and the family gave me a suppository for a sore throat. Obviously that was a while ago though so I don't know whether they're used for sore throats now.

Did you use it? If so, did it work?

When I go to US I always buy some Advil - god knows what's in it but it works a treat !

Our 1 year old was prescribed suppositories for a bad cough and cold at a clinic in Rome - as well as a steroid inhaler. We gave the suppositories a miss. We mentioned it to our paediatrician in London when we returned. He rolled his eyes and said it was a continental thing.

Because it stops people thinking that antibiotics would cure it.

I'll never forget when I had a verruca or some other similar growth on my foot and I went to a GP in the UK about it and was offered a prescription for something that I believe was based around vitamin C but told "well, I can offer you this but it doesn't work very well."

As this did not inspire me with any confidence and I was due to go to my home country (Poland), I went there to a dermatologist and was given a prescription for something that came in drops and would burn the thing off plus zinc paste to protect the surrounding area. This did work, though it was difficult to get the precise 2 drops or whatever small amount it was in reasonable size with the dropper and one time I put too much and it was painful to put my weight on the foot for the next day.

For other things, I've met a number of UK GPs who thought a basic emollient would get my rashes and flareups of atopic dermatitis to go away on its own. It's useful to moisturise the skin, but that Epaderm is not shifting anything.

For colds I’m all about chicken soup, a syrup made of muscovado sugar and carrots and/or the potato thing you mentioned but with eucalyptus leaves.

My (Brit) partner has Lucozade when he’s poorly and I personally find it bizarre.

I also find doctors here a lot more resistant to prescribing… anything, really. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, it just feels like everything takes forever to get sorted.

I don’t really like Cola but I will drink it if I’m ill. Also my go-to hangover cure.

Always perplexes me that you have to go to the pharmacy for paracetamol in Spain, but the pharmacy can also prescribe stuff that is strictly drs prescription here. Why are they so guarded with routine pain killers, but less bureaucratic with HRT for example?

It helped with my son's colic too. My mil suggested it and it's commonly used in Pakistan.

Oh, chicken soup! The Jewish penicillin! (Although not nescessarily Jewish) I'm surprised this hasn't come up before. My Russian friend made me broth once. Any kind of bone broth is the elixer of life. Her broth had a layer of burning fat on top of it but that's what gets you going.

I was advised to take lysine after having shingles to prevent the virus reoccurring and as cold sores are due to the same virus the balm is probably effective.

@tinydynamine Do you have the name of the tea for UTI please? would like to try it

The thing that most surprises me though is how very vague and not-detailed a lot of UK medical advice is. When I want to look up something, I look on Polish sites, because the English ones, including the NHS websites are written as though for small children. This is apparently for accessibility and for ESL patients, but at the cost of not conveying much information. Perhaps they could do a simplified and a more detailed version. I find this also face-to-face and find that medical staff often have to be pressed to give me my results or provide information about what they 're up to. I've had ultrasounds in Poland and they provided me with commentary; here they prefer to be just silent.

And that you have to practically grapple the scalpel out of the doctor’s hand to forestall circumcision.

When I was first married in the 1980s Guinness was prescribed to women post partum - a couple of bottles a day for 6 weeks or so.- this is in the UK.

The strangest medicine I have seen was in Thailand I stayed there for a year. A tourist fell and cut his thigh badly on some rocks. The nearest doctor was 2 days travel, by boat and jeep. The locals cleaned it out with lime juice and stuffed the wound with tobacco, I don't know the outcome, but the locals all seemed in agreement that was the best thing to do.

It really does depend on the baby. Milk isn't enough for big babies who are ready for food.

My dad lives on Poland and was told to take high dosages of calcium for joint pain (several times recommended daily dose). According to him it works.

He was recently given cryotherapy for muscle pain, where he was stripped naked apart from gloves a hat and pants and made to walk around a large freezer at minus twenty degrees....with a load of other people similarly attired.

There are naturally carbonated water springs near him and and apparently you can tell them what your ailments are and they will recommend you one variety or another. Kidney issues, low blood pressure.

I have no idea if any of the stuff as any credence or we are just behind then times...

Last time I was in India I had a chesty cough. I went to the pharmacy and the first thing they pulled out from behind the counter was a box of antibiotics. And then wanted me to take the full box of 100 tablets because "they will keep and you can use them another time". It's no wonder we're fucked with global resistance to antibiotics if that's how they're dispensed in other countries.