In looking for a French equivalent of Piriton, as it's the hay fever season again, I came across a great site: http://base-donnees-publique.medicaments.gouv.fr/ It's an official site and not only does it tell you what products are available in France containing the active ingredient you want, but also what form they come in & whether or not a prescription is needed.
Before you go to the site, it's best to get hold of the name of the active ingredient of the product you want either by reading the packaging, if you have any, or looking up the product on Google. Then go to the site. Its Home Page has two search boxes & I use the second of these, leaving the default as "Commence par". Then simply enter the first 6 or so characters of the active ingredient's name & click the green search button. (You can put in the full name, but some names are slightly different in French, such as clobetasone, which becomes clobetasol, but the root of the word is often identical.) It doesn't appear necessary to use accents. You can start again at any time by going to the Home Page via "Acceuil" at the top of the page. If you can't find anything for the active ingredient based on its name in English, it can be helpful to go to the French version of the Wikipedia page, which may indicate an alternative spelling.
Once you have some hits for the name of the ingredient, it's simply a question of navigating through the information available and reading it carefully, especially checking dosage. It's a good idea, nevertheless, to double-check suitability for your use with the Pharmacist when purchasing any non-prescription medication you haven't previously used.
James, Could this site go into the Useful Links section?
You can check all medicines on www.vidal.fr/fichesmedicaments, it is the equivalent of the British MIMS and a very useful tool is you are on multi medicines! This is the reference book used by doctors and hospital. You can search by generic names (which is how it is usually prescribed in England) or by manufacturers name such as Paracetamol (generic) and Doliprane, Effalgan etc etc
Peter, as you probably know, there is a very high incidence of Anglo-Saxon yacht crew on the Cote d'Azur, which has led in the past and is still current, to some pharmaceutical suppliers making a fortune out of supplying prescription medications and over the counter, everyday British products to the yachts, where the larger units will have someone onboard either with the Ship Captains Medical Cert or equivalent qualification. This entitles the vessel to have these products in it's locked, secure medical chest, with a medical logbook to record the use under MCA regulations flying the Red Ensign and the majority of signature countries. However, where this system falls down is crusing/ sea going from Port to Port or at anchor, where onboard treatments not requiring a Doctor uses the products which cannot be easily, cheaply or quickly replaced at local pharmacies - specifically France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey for example. I therefore made it a rule on my yachts that all medicaments should be purchased locally, making it known to the Pharmacist over the years that multi-lingual instructions should always be included with the product, which I note they are now by and large doing. This effectively cut my annual medical expenses in half where anti-biotics were concerned for a large crew, and furthermore, many pharmacies on the Cote d'Azur now employ foreign bi or multi ligual assistants to cover this market, which takes in the tourist industry as well. Mind you, some people will not travel without a wire brush and Dettol, Alka Selzter or Boot's aspirin in their kit - the fear of the French suppository still lingers.......!!
Graham, You make a very good point, and this can be very helpful for those who don't feel they want to 'do-it-themselves'. Personally, I like to be armed with the information in advance, but my university subject was Chemistry, so I'm hardly typical. Around my part of the world, on the Swiss border, all the pharmacies have the abilities to look up equivalences, as half the population get prescriptions from Swiss doctors as their insurance is Swiss-based. (The French are trying to put a stop to this, but that's another story.)
The majority of French pharmacies (especially those in high tourist areas like Nice) have either an equivalence register book or the possibility to look up your medication in English(or any other language for that matter) on their computers, to find all the information on a certified equivalent - prescription or not! Unless you know this, you probably wouldn't even think of asking??
The EU site is mainly for products authorised for commercialisation via the centralised registration procedure. Before this procedure came into effect, each country had its own registration process with its own, national registers. That might explain why you can't find some of the INNs you've been looking for.
I've had a look at the European Commission site & it has quite a lot of information, but seems to have a number of gaps as well. It is headed as "Pharmaceuticals - Community Register", but doesn't seem to have entries for relatively common products like Chlorphenamine, which is the INN for the active ingredient in Piriton, nor for Betamethasone. Even for INNs where it does have entries, such as for Amlodipine, the 'usual' proprietary brand in France, Amlor, isn't mentioned. I'll see if I can find out more about the basis of this site's data.
Alexander, the drugs.com one is very USA oriented whereas the other first class because it covers all European classifications fully. I have anti-convulsants that the former takes some detective work to find using the active ingredient from the packet whereas the EU one identifies it straight off. But good. Nonetheless, they help check whatever I am given since I dislike having to take medication to begin with, have little or no choice thus wish to choose the optimal ones with the least secondary or side effects.
Yes, it is good. I had an allergy to one of my medications and the OH had a look and found something to suggest to the specialist which he looked up and hey presto! I'd forgotten it but belongs on Useful Links 100%.