Tag: medicine

Pollen Allergy in Estonia 2021.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

I was 10 years old when I remarkably saw the symptoms of a pollen allergy. I used all the tissues that I had so I was trying to stop the runny nose with a thin hand towel. It happened during a test or something and my teacher was so worried about me. Since then, I had a box of tissues in my desk drawer to spend spring.

Then every spring I got the best friend: a mask. No matter how many times I blew my nose, I had a runny nose, so I put tissues in my nose and wore a mask to hide it. (I did this sometimes because no one could see the inside of the mask and it was better to have a runny nose.)

I think I started taking medication for pollen allergy since I became a university student. I believe if I had started taking medication earlier, I would have comfortably spent spring. However, it doesn’t mean that I have a bad memory. It’s just a past moment.

As a university student, my work colleague recommended a medicine that we could buy without prescription at a pharmacy, but it wasn’t effective for me at all. So I went to see an ENT doctor in my hometown, and he said that type of medicine is not necessarily effective for everyone.

The pollen allergy medicine that you can buy without a prescription at a pharmacy in Japan. (Reference)

I don’t remember when exactly, but I was running out of the pollen allergy medicines that I got in my hometown, so I went to the ENT hospital near my flat in Kyoto. The doctor said we couldn’t see the effect unless I started taking the medication before the pollen allergy started (like from January as the pollen allergy starts in March or something in Japan). I also got medication for when the symptoms are more awful, which is instantly effective, but in terms of the daily pollen allergy medication, it requires time.

Then, I went to Ireland as an exchange student. Before going there I didn’t think of the pollen allergy at all, but when it was getting warmer in Dublin, I felt I slightly had a runny nose. In the beginning I wondered about regular sickness, but I didn’t see other symptoms like a sore throat, so I realised that I had the pollen allergy in Ireland too.

However, I didn’t take any medication in Ireland because it wasn’t that awful, and a small pack of tissues helped me enough.

But it was different in Northern Europe.

In Estonia (and Finland too), there are lots of birch trees. Since there was not so much information about Estonia before going there, I referred to information about Finland, and found the fact that the Finnish have the pollen allergy owing to birch.

But it was information on Finland, not Estonia, so I contacted someone in Estonia, and he said

I’ve never heard of pollen allergy in Estonia. I don’t think there is.

I thought “That’s probably because you don’t have the pollen allergy”.  (I was pretty sure that Estonia had a pollen allergy, but I needed someone’s real voice.)

Then I contacted another person, and he said if I asked for the pollen allergy medication at a pharmacy, they would give me the medicine.

Glad to know!!!

I tried two types of pollen allergy medicines in Estonia, and found Claritin in a blue box seemed effective for me. Since then, I start taking it every January. It costs 10 to 13 euro per package which contains 30 tablets, so if I keep taking it until June, around 60 euro is gone in total, but it’s  a good investment for my health and comfortable life. 

However, it was different in 2021.

Reference

I think I started taking the pollen allergy medication a bit later than usual this year, and Claritin doesn’t work well (occasionally)!

I brought medicines for an awful case from Japan, and I was forced to take it too. Otherwise, even if I take Claritin, I have a huge runny nose.

Every year, it was fine as long as I took the pollen allergy medicines, but this year (in 2021) I had itchy eyes too!

My eyes are awfully itchy!

I couldn’t bear it, so after wondering if I should buy an eye drop at a pharmacy or book an appointment at the ENT hospital, I eventually decided to try the eye drop from the pharmacy. I asked two of my Estonian friends, and they told how to say the eye drop in Estonian:

õietolmuallergia silmatilgad.

One of them told me “Allergodiil” usually works well, so I went to the pharmacy near my place, and found only one left! It cost around 6 euro.

On purchasing the eye drop, I applied it, and it seemed it was instantly effective. After that, I didn’t have itchy eyes.

I still don’t know why this year the pollen allergy is so awful, but anyways for the future reference, I decided to write it down as maybe I will need the eye drops again next year (although I’m not sure if I’ll still be here).

Aitäh! 🙂

P.S.

The other friend sent me this message. You’re not wrong, mate.

Zooks Gets Prescription in Estonia

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

Do you have anything like a medicine handbook in yoru country? In Japan, more specifically as in Wakayama (my hometown) I didn’t have such a thing but I got one when I started my college life and got prescription in Kyoto.

So far I didn’t even think that it was a convenient or incovenient thing but whenever my doctors asked my medicines that I was taking I couldn’t answer at all.

When I got my first medical handbook/notebook it was literally sometihng physical with papers. Of course in Estonia you won’t get such a thing. Then, would they make a card like a consultation ticket (the hospitals in Japan usually make this for you)? Of course not. Here is Estonia, mate. I have once written about the use of this Estonian ID card as a library card in Japanese and the logic is the same; if the Estonian ID card works as a library card, it works as a medical handbook/notebook.

This time the article is about the prescriptions.

My Japanese medical notebook.

Don’t get surprised even though you didn’t know but I stayed in the hospital for a month. (Maybe I’ll write this story in the future.) On the 31st of December 2019, at around 10am I had the final talk with my doctor and my nurse.

We talked about the side effects of the medicines, the minimum period of taking them and the next appointment with another nurse and doctor. My doctor told me to take two kinds of medicines that I had been taking since I was in the hospital as well as vitamin D. He also said that I could buy the medicines not in the hospital but in a pharmacy though I didn’t know anything so he gave me a printed-out document of the prescription. Besides, I was told to keep taking them for at least six months.

Before leaving the hospital, I asked my nurse and she said I could buy the medicines in any pharmacy – like a normal one that you go to when you want to buy, for example, plasters.






Is it really okay to sell such medicines that need prescriptions?




I thought. However, it doesn’t mean you can “pick up” from the shelf in the pharmacy and buy them.

Anyway, I went home and headed to the closest pharmacy. In Estonia a supermarket that is more than medium-size tends to have a pharmacy. (It doesn’t mean that the pharmacy is in the supermarket but it is in the same building.)

I had no idea how to buy the medicines so I made a queue in front of the casher. Then I showed the paper that the doctor gave me and the shop clerk asked me:



Do you have a prescription?

What?

To be honest, I had no idea that my Estonian ID card worked as a medical handbook/notebook at all so I said:



I was staying in the hospital and my doctor gave it to me.

Then the shop clerk asked me if I had the Estonian ID card. I just passed him my card without even wondering about anything. He read the card with a reader and just started picking the medicines from the withdraws behind the casher.

I have used this pharmacy and thought that he was just a shop clerk but (probably) a proper pharmacist. He seemed a polite person and always told me how to take although I always knew it.




Oh, as for the vitamin D, he just got one of the bottles displayed in the shop.


In total I purchased a bottle of 100 tablets of vitamin D, one type of the medicines for 28 days and another one for 30 days, which cost less than 26€.






It’s cheap, isn’t it…?




Usually mental medicines cost more than general medicines like pollen allergy medicines. When I had prescriptions in Japan for something mental, until I applied to the Kyoto city for the special discount, I spent around 80€ (10,000 yen) for two medicines every month. After getting approval of the special discount from Kyoto city, I spent only 10% of the full cost of the medicines, meaning that it reduced 2/3 of the cost that I paid so eventually the total cost was around 28€ (3,000 yen).

From such a experience, I thought “the medicines are cheap in Estonia, aren’t they?” The vitamin would last approximately for three months so I don’t have to pay for it from the next time, meaning that the medical fee wouldn’t exceed 26€.






This made me happy.




After all I got the medicines and the vitamin D and I restarted taking them according to the rule. In order not to forget, I set the alarm that ring at 9 pm every day for the one that I need to take in the evening.

Also at the final talk with the doctor and the nurse, they made the next appointment (as mentioned above) but my new nurse figured out that this initial nurse couldn’t speak English that much so we changed the appointment date and time but I still had the medicines so there was no problem. From my experience I knew how to buy the medicines so there was nothing difficult either. (Additionally, after this appointment I bought the medicines and figured out two medicines for about one month cost only 9€….)

Besides, you can see your prescription on State Portal. The image below is mine.

There is clearly the doctor’s name who prescribed the medicies on the most right and the names of the medicines in the third colum from the left of the table in the picture.

The second image shows the detail after clicking “ID of prescription”. Still cheap isn’t it?







This is the Estonian medical notebook. Huh!





Of course you can buy general medicines at pharmacy without prescriptions. (My Japanese article about it is here.)

That’s all about the story of the prescription in Estonia and the Estonian medical notebook.

Aitäh! 🙂