Calling out SOS Médecins

Well, it was bound to happen soon enough – on Thursday night I had to test out the French emergency medical system during a rather nasty attack of my Crohn’s.

I’ve been having these attacks of extreme pain and vomiting since I was about 19 and they are not much less alarming after twenty-odd years. It is my body’s violent response to a blockage in my small bowel where food is stuck in a narrowing caused by inflammation.

Some women with Crohn’s have compared the pain to childbirth. I can’t possibly comment – but it is very painful. The huge waves of pain build up to me throwing up 3-4 times in a row followed by a brief pause and then the whole process starts again until there is nothing left in my bowel – and I don’t just mean my stomach.

On Thursday this went on for about 2 hours, but sometimes it has gone on much longer. Often in the past I have ended up admitted to hospital.

Over the past few years I have discovered ways of either stopping these attacks or making them less intense. When I feel an attack coming on I’ve used painkillers like tramadol and morphine together with relaxation and hypno-therapy techniques.

Sometimes these work, sometimes they don’t – and on Thursday they didn’t.

I knew we would need to call a doctor out and maybe go to hospital. This was really frightening – I had no idea what would happen. I’ve had bad experiences in the UK and, although all my contact with the French health system has been good so far, I was fearing the worst.

My partner phoned the local hospital around 8pm and, as I was unable to make my way to the hospital to see a doctor, they suggested calling out a doctor from the SOS Médecins service.

The wait was probably about the same as in the UK – about 90 minutes – but I would say that the doctor who came probably knew more about Crohn’s and about how the local health system works than a visiting doctor in the UK.

I received a thorough examination and we discussed my medical history and my current treatment. We decided that I would have a course of steroids and I would make an appointment to see my gastroenterologist within the following two weeks.

In the meantime I was to rest, keep myself hydrated and slowly and carefully start eating. This is the sort of treatment and advice that I would need to see a gastroenterologist for in the UK – perhaps a week after an attack.

So this was another positive experience of the French healthcare system, although one it would have been nice to have avoided.