Tag: health

Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired

On By StevenIn Life In Germany18 Comments

In the first week of 2013, I got sick.  It was on Wednesday that I started to feel tired and cold.  When I went home after work, I got into my bed, fully clothed, pulled the blanket up over my head, and slept for a while.  Over the next few days, there was a lot of shivering, a lot of sleeping, and a lot of randomly weird body aches.  I still don’t understand why being sick means you have to feel like someone has been continuously throwing oranges at you.

After my first round of sleeping off the fever, I had to start using pharmaceuticals.  In order to get what you need for a cold in Germany,  you have to go to an Apotheke.  You can’t buy over the counter cold medicine in grocery stores here like you can in the US; you must go to an Apotheke for your medicinal needs.  They all use either a variant of this red ‘A’ logo, as seen on this receipt, or in some cases, an internationally recognized green cross.

apotheke

What I purchased this time around is pictured below, except the Ricola cough drops.  Those are the same here as they are in the US.

Aspirin – This is pretty much the same as it is in the US.  The packaging is different, to meet Germany’s exacting packaging and trash rules, but aspirin is aspirin.  I grew up having Bayer aspirin all my life, and didn’t realize until I got to Germany that Bayer is a German company.  They’re a very big name in medicine here.

Grippostad – This is a multi-symptom cold medicine.  It has components for head and body aches, runny nose, cough, and fever.   It also has a boost of vitamin c, and it’s pretty effective at masking the rest of those symptoms for a little while.

Lemoncin – This is for sore throats.  It’s a lemony losenge.  It tastes pretty good.

pharma

Aside from that, I just fight being sick with lots of water, eating when I need to, and taking lots of rest.

How do you cope when you’re sick?

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Stop! Gummi Time!

On By StevenIn Life In Germany4 Comments

Those who have known me for a long time know that for most of the last twelve years or so, I used Flintstones chewable vitamins.  I wanted to take a daily multivitamin, but I cant stand the pill form vitamins I’ve tried, and the Chewables seemed like a nice compromise.

(And before you protest that Flintstone’s Chewables are for kids, I will inform you that they are often suggested by doctors for pregnant women who can’t stomach neonatal vitamins without nausea.  If they’re good enough for pregnant women, they’re good enough for me.)

When I got to Germany, I found that it was difficult to easily find the sorts of things that I used to just walk into Walgreen’s for back in the US.  The brands just aren’t always available.    When I ran out of my Flintstone’s, I had to decide what to do about my vitamin intake.  This is what I decided on:  Gummi Bear vitamins.  I eat a few of these every day.  It’s fun.  And tasty.  And it’s theoretically healthy, too.