Vlady Fresh

Cambodia is a country of unlicensed pharmacies, untrained pharmacists, incompetent doctors and counterfeit medicines. The government claims that it is addressing these issues. Unfortunately it will be years, possibly decades, before we see significant change.

In the meantime I’ve had to adjust by becoming my own doctor. I’ve really had no choice since there is no doctor that I trust within a 2 hour drive. Thankfully, making use of the “Idiot’s Guide to Self Medication” (at least that is what it should be entitled) and Google, I’ve been able to lick every ailment … except one. My allergies.

Allergies are not new to me. What’s new is the severity. During the last month and half I’ve had two, possibly three, nights of uninterrupted sleep. Typically, I go to sleep without incident but wake up between 2 and 3 am with a multi-hour sneezing fit. My misery has been growing in direct proportion to the mounting sleep deficit.

In response, I began to experiment. The first batch of generic Zyrtec was from Korea and seemed to work well (defined as sleeping through the night 10% of the time). My second batch of Korean Zyrtec, from a different company, was a dud. I think it was counterfeit. I switched to generic Indian Allegra which was also a dud. I think it was counterfeit as well. In desperation, I went to one of the few modern pharmacies in Phnom Penh that cater to foreigners. There I doled out the big bucks and bought what I believe to be genuine Zyrtec and Allegra, made in Europe. So far the Allegra seems to be working.

Spotting counterfeit drugs has become something of a hobby for me. My technique is primarily linguistic analysis. If English words are misspelled or the grammar is garbled, I assume it’s a fake. On rare occasion I’ve come across Italian medicine which is also amenable to this type of examination. Unfortunately for me the packaging and instructions are often in French, which is a challenge because I’ve never studied the language. Then there are the times when the drugs have everything written in Vietnamese or Thai. During those moments I have no option but to go on faith.

When I need to exercise my faith in this way, at least I have one consolation. I’m grateful the meds didn’t come from China!