Mixun

Today I had my first experience with pharmacies in Nigeria. Jim has an ear infection and saw the doctor (a good, expat doctor that has the company's approval). Unfortunately, the doctor's office didn't have the antibiotic Jim needed. So the doc wrote out the names of what needed to be in the drops and I went searching for the meds this morning.

Shocking. I knew it to be true, but to see it first-hand was simply shocking. No one needs prescriptions for anything. They can (and usually do) self-diagnose (prices are too high to see a doctor and he might not know much, anyway!) and then they buy what they think they need. In any dosage, in any volume. For a small price, too!

I found what Jim's doctor had recommended. The price was less than 1/4 of the price in the U.S. But with it comes risks. Risks that cause me to appreciate the U.S. regulations. I know they seem like killer prices to all of you but that's better than killer meds!

Jide, our driver, gave me quite a lesson on what can be found in pharmacies, through "chemists," and through little old ladies with their small tables of provisions on the roadsides. (In return for the lesson, I gave Jide a basic health lesson.) Legal or illegal, it matters not. Just about anything that a person wants can be found.

And this brings me to the point of the post title, "Mixun". For around 20 naira (1.3 cents) a person can ask the chemist for some Mixun. The chemist will open his "plastics" -- large containers that have hundreds of a certain tablet. They will spoon out 2 tablets from various plastics -- 2 pain relievers, 2 tablets for stomach aches, 2 Vit. Cs, 2 Folic Acid tablets, and who knows what all else. When they've collected about 12 tablets per each 20 naira, they'll put them in a small waterproof (plastic bag) and hand it to the shopper. "Such a deal," the locals think! Then, if the shopper has three sick children at home, he'll ask his children to share the Mixun. Often, one person will down 12 tablets at once ... and wait to see what happens! "Honestly ... no matter how!"

My little health lesson for Jide had some effect in the area of un-approved drugs that you can only get from the little old ladies. I explained that the reason the gov't wouldn't approve the drugs is that there is great risk for longterm side effects -- ruining kidneys, livers, etc. Hardly worth the short relief from a headache. He and his family won't use them anymore.

But Jide and his family use Mixun. He promised to bring me a bag of it -- to see, not use! -- the next time he gets some. I couldn't convince him about the negative effects of Mixun. Even when I explained that too much Vit. C will be sloughed, taking with it all of the good iron in the body, etc. He just figures that it can't hurt to take a little bit of something you don't need with the hope that you can be helped by some of the tablets. Even my illustration of a hunter who went into the bush to get an animal to feed his family and he wore a blindfold and shot the gun up toward the air in the hopes that he would get the much-needed food ... , even that didn't help. So, Jide and I need some more Mixun discussions!

And even though we are soooooo anxious to leave this place, I will miss it on so many levels when the time actually arrives.