Pill Popping Population

Spring just started, so I did some spring cleaning, and went through the medicine cabinet. I threw everything out that

1) was expired,
2) had no box ,
3) had a box but no instruction sheet,
4) I could no longer remember what it was for and
5) cured diseases that definitely need a doctor rather than a homemade decision on what pills to pop.

I ended up with this huge batch of pills. It’s a good thing we don’t have suicidal tendencies in this household, because we’ve got enough to finish off the entire building.

I know my collection of pills is not unusual for a Lebanese household. We pop ‘em like there is not tomorrow. No matter whose bathroom you use; you check the bathroom cabinet, and you’ve got an avalanche of boxes and tablet tumbling out.

I don’t know what it is with Lebanese and medication, but it is a close relationship. Beggars in the street wave doctor’s prescription papers in front of your face to implore that money is of vital importance to their survival. You can have entire dinner conversations pivot around the topic of pills and doctors. What medicines to take for heart tremor, what helps best against a rash here or a rash there, how to alleviate a little pain here, and cure a disease there. Anti-biotics seems a standard remedy against the common cold, no matter that it is a viral infection.

A pharmacist at the end of this summer’s war told me that valium and related products were his main income. Didn’t patients need a prescription for that? Well, yes, officially, they did, but he was only helping out, because many people didn’t have the money to go to a doctor, and with 5 years of study, he figured he could make a depression diagnosis as well as any doctor. Besides, who wouldn’t get depressed after 30-something days of bombing?

In Lebanon, you do not go to a general doctor when you have a problem; you go to the pharmacist. I do the same. A doctor requires an appointment, a long wait in a waiting room and a (usually) hefty fee of no less than $25 or more. You in the west will laugh at this ‘hefty’ fee, but it is hefty if you consider that many people do not have health insurance. A doctor is only there in case the pharmacist can’t solve the problem.

The pharmacist will ask you what the symptoms are, and give you a cream, some pills or a liquid, depending on your ailment. No examination required. Sore throats, angina, ear aches, stomach pains, heavy arms, headaches in the front or the back, kidney pain, itchy eyes, lice, eczema, heart burn or heart pain; no doctor is ever involved.
Some pharmacist will even give you the shot, if that’s what they’ve prescribed. All this stuff goes over the counter; no prescription needed. And if nothing else helps, there is always ‘may warde’.

I’ve never seen a study on the use of pills per head in Lebanon, but I think it should be an interesting study.