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RLRP

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  1. [quote user="LyndaandRichard"][quote user="odile"]So glad Iceni can give expert advice. In the UK all opticians, small, big, supermarket or otherwise will always check for damage to the back of the eye (diabetes) and check the pressure in the eyes too, but in France or Switzerland not all do. My mother's sight was geting worse, so I ask my dad to take her to an optician (I live in the UK, they live just over the French border in the Jura). Dad took her to Pontarlier (France) x 3- and the guy just sold her new glasses. By the time I realised that the pressure in her eyes had NOT been checked- I took her to the ophtamologist at the local hospital. She had very raised pressure and advanced glaucoma - he prescribed drops, but it was too late. She is now blind. I expressed my dismay that the optician had not checked, but the specialist explained that they don;t all have the equipment. I felt dreadful, as I had taken it for granted that the excellent care we get in the UK would also be the norm in France. She was an avid reader, and since she lost her sight, depression has set in. Just not worth the few quid saved, really. [/quote] Sorry to hear that. The French optician service is extremely strange to the say the least. My wife went to a French ophtamologist today. After the big "France has wonderful health care system" etc, we were expecting something quite special and a through going over. We couldn't believe how primitive everything was. She was referred there by our gp as her eyes have been getting slowly worse over the past year or so, just a natural progression I guess, to the normal long sightedness most people get in middle age. We were in there for about 90 minutes, with approx 75 mins of that spent waiting. She went in and she did the normal eye chart thing with a couple of different lenses. Then she was told to read something and then had drops put into her eyes which opened the pupils up. That was it. No colour blindness check, none of the other normal thorough checks that we were used to getting from our opticians in Australia. The ophtamologist prescribed some glasses, but how she could prescribe the correct ones I don't know as she only put a couple of different lenses in and asked which one is the best. Now I don't know if I'm missing something here, but to me that is not an eye test. Or is there some other person who does the full eye test and an ophtamologist just looks at something specific? Or is this particular ophtamologist just rubbish? [/quote] Unfortunately, your experience with ophtalmologists and opticians in France is not uncommon. (Even French people are complaining about quality and delay) In France, only an optometrist ( working as an optician ) can offer an extensive eye exam like the one you are used to in UK, Canada, US and Australia. In Paris, I got a full examination (50 eye tests including the eye pressure and others) from Exavue www.exavue.fr in Paris where the optometrist is speaking fluent English. If some disease (glaucoma, cataract, keratoconus ,  ...) would have been found during his comprehensive exam, the optometrist would refer you to the right specialist ophtalmologist  in a specialised hospital. If Paris is too far away from your place, he will provide you with the address of other trusted optometrists near you. Hope it will help.  
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