Sikcell: People living with Sickle Cell

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SCD in France (and other places outside of the USA)

Brief introduction and background. My name is Bukky and I am 20 year old college student.

In 5 days I will be leaving the United States to study abroad in Marseille, France for 5months. I have done all the logistics to take care of myself while away (filled prescriptions, informed doctors etc.)

However, I was wondering if anyone on the site has had experience with Sickle Cell Anemia with abroad and more specifically in France (even more specifically in Marseille).

I have not had a crisis in a year so I do not anticipate falling sick while away but I would like to hear of personal experiences of dealing with Sickle Cell outside of the US.

Living in the nation's capital I often take for granted the accessibility of sickle cell treatment.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences ...

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Permalink Reply by Greg on December 30, 2013 at 11:15am

Hello Bukky,

My name is Gregory, i'm 25,i'm engeener in IT and i'am fighting SCD too.

I'm french and i live in Paris so i can tell you how it is here to deal with a crisis here.

What i can tell is that you will meet doctors that know the disease and how to deal with a patient in crisis in hospitals but in most case, general doctors know the disease but they don't know the pain killers that we take during crisis.

In my experience, the hospital gave good care (morphine, rehydratation....)so you don't have to worry about being sick here.

What you should know is that the french name of SCD is "Drepanocytose", you also know your normal hb levels and you must be able to tell them if you are SS or SC.

I don't know if you are under hydroxyurea, but the french drug is call (Hydrea or Siklos).

PS: don't be worry about the fact that you are going to Marseille because this is the second city here and there is plenty of SC patients in Marseille. It is because there is a lot of people from Africa, Morroco, Algeria living there

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Permalink Reply by Bukky Ade on January 12, 2014 at 3:21pm

Hi Gregory,

Thank you so much for your feedback. That's good to hear!

Definitely helpful to know the french name for SCD.

I actually havent seen very many hospitals here but I heard France has one of best health systems in the world sooo (in the unlikely chance) that something happens I feel a lil safer.