Health and medicine - an update

I like pictures in my blog, but health posts don't have any natural photo associations, so I'm choosing plants today!

From time to time I have written about our experience with illness, pain, operations and all things medical.  Here is an update.  It is primarily mine - Mary has her own collection of aches, pains and health problems, but all that needs to be said to start with is that we are both reasonably healthy and, thankfully, so far free of The Virus.

From our arrival here until a couple of years ago we were both registered with the same doctor, Dr Cayla, a man of insight and experience whose ability to diagnose and prescribe was recommended by others and confirmed many times by our experience.  He is about my age and retired last year, so we both had to find new GPs, and we both went to the very efficient group practice in the nearby village of Saint Just.  In theory at least you now have to register a médecin traitant with the social security/health system ((the CPAM (Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie linked to the national health insurance system Assurance Maladie and its online presence ameli)  Happily despite all the muddles over Brexit (will it ever end?) the basic exit agreement allows us British longterm residents in France continued access to the health service.

By chance, Mary ended up with one of the longer-standing practice partners in St Just, and I after a series of temporary doctors have found myself with a young man, Dr Vert, who is very nice, thoughtful but efficient.  So we are sorted for now, and as far as I can make out they have never stopped receiving people for appointments at the surgery.  For my dealings with the Montpellier pain clinic I have so far been restricted to phone and email, but my phone consultation with a very pleasant and informative doc, Patrick Geniès, led to prescriptions for my sciatic pain which have much improved things.  The key to this has been increased use of codeine, and while I know about the addictive effects and the side-effect of feeling spaced out, the relief from leg pain has been really welcome now further surgical intervention seems unlikely.  I'm waiting to see if some supervised electrotherapy treatment or TENS may also help - I have had bad experiences when physiotherapists have hitched me to machines and gone to chat to their mates, but Dr Giniès says properly organised use at home may be much more effective.  We'll see now lock-down is lifting.

Exercise is also important, and after years trailing off to the gym I now have machines at home which are easier to combine with nice music and reading, and a heck of a lot cheaper into the bargain!  Of course we walk a bit too, especially now we have the dogs, but exercise at home is often simpler - Mary as you can see prefers the discipline of Qi Gong to machines!