Hi all,
my wife and I will be moving to France it looks like, more details in another post, one of the many details that interests me is a sleep medication Eszopiclone whose market name in the US is Lunesta. I tried to find out if it was available in france (either over the counter or by perscription), but my various queries only found me online pharmacies of questionable repute that wish to sell me the pills.
Does anyone have advice on how to find out about the availability of Lunesta in france?
Many thanks in advance.

It would appear from THIS link that Eszopiclone is not available in Europe for the reasons given.

Thanks Tweedpipe I wouldn't have thought to look at Wikipedia for that information.
I guess I won't be doing much sleep while in france, I've tried other meds, but Lunesta has been the most effective and with least side-effects for me.

Scratch that, did a little closer reading and it looks like Zimovane may be fairly similar so maybe there is hope

Zopiclone is prescribed in France by GP’s; from TP’s link you will see it is similar to your preferred Eszopiclone

Zopiclone is available with prescription - see here


http://sante-az.aufeminin.com/medica...p?kw=zopiclone

Thanks so much, now once we arrive I just have to find a new GP!

I have a need for a particular brand of medication that I was on in the UK, and the MT here managed to put me on a similar medication with the same ingredient and it works a treat. France dishes out so much medication, the chances of finding something very, very similar is highly likely!

When I have been to France and needed to treat unwell colleagues I have been amazed at how many prescription drugs are OTC and some of the more common OTC drugs have a much stronger formulary.

The OTC lifestyle is vanishing slowly a lot of the pharmacies won't just give you any old medication now and insist on prescriptions although a few still don't bother.

If you want to live the OTC lifestyle in the US you are goinig to need to be happy with ibuprofen and some diuretics

That's the same in Spain, at one time antibiotics were available OTC, when we lived there they were stopping that, but you could get them from some pharmacies, but there were many other POMs from the UK that were OTC there, and things like paracetamol and Ibuprofen were stronger, and you could buy much larger packs than the UK.