Absolutely, when I was in Macon hospital for a week the food was awful and the amount of waste was disgusting.
I could not order smaller portions and who wants half a plate full of soggy green beans?
When you think that this waste must be multiplied throughout the hospitals in France, huge savings could be made and patients would feel so much better if there was less but of a better quality.
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I never drank their coffee and stuck to water.
Oh EarthMother, I have so many questions. I just moved to Bordeaux from the US and have a VERY bad right knee and it continues to get worse. I just found and joined this community so I can’t find out more from you (yet anyhow). I don’t even know if you will see this. If you do, I’d love to know that tidbit and hopefully I can learn more from your experience, I don’t even know who to see about it. Marcy :(. I do hope you have fully recovered! 
Hello @MJluvsFrance and welcome to Survive France!
If you are a new arrival, the French healthcare system can be quite daunting to get your head round. I don’t know how it compares with how the US ones work but there are quite a few people on here who will know.
The first thing to ask is - have you got yourself signed up with a general practitioner? They are the first port of call for everything.
I have no experience of knees but several people on here do so panic not - there will be help!
@MJluvsFrance as Angela says first step is getting registered with a general doctor, your medecin traitant (MT), and asking to be referred to an orthopaedic surgeon. Some MTs will recommend one and help with the booking process, but don’t be surprised if you just get given a letter of referral and you have to find and book this for yourself. You can search on Doctolib or Santé.fr for chirurgien orthopédiste.
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Thank you so much, that referral part was my biggest curiosity. While I don’t think I will be here in Bordeaux for but a few months, (could totally change and we could be here indefinitely but doubtful) I guess I should move forward on that regardless if I hope to have an help on my knee. Thank you again Marcy
Thank you so much Angela Have not found a general Dr. yet as we are intent on moving repeatedly around France in an attempt to find the area we want to hang our hat for a few years. Just came from Tours, now for Bordeaux for a few months, maybe Lille, then Brittany and so on. But I’ll have to work on finding one I suppose.
We got an extended visa to stay here for a year. And we will apply for residency by Sept. when our year is up. (Mr. and I are both retired in our early 50’s). We do hear that the healthcare here is yes, in fact, a pain in the bum. We were lucky that we had amazing insurance in the US and at the best tier and widest used, we rarely had much red tape to contend with. So I’m mentally prepared for the headache I hear about. I do have A LOT to learn and I’m so happy I found this community You all seem great!
We haven’t found it so. It’s been brilliant.
Hello and welcome to the forum…
Re your Health… if you have arranged equally “amazing insurance” for here in France… you should be able to get your knee seen to without problem…
best of luck
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Ohhh that’s so great to hear! Thank you
Thank you for your reply. Well I wish… but right now it’s complicated. We currently have Cigna “International” Health insurance which is for us to really only use for emergency situations this first year, like ER visits and such. We will apply for residency in August. And should that go “ok” it will be 3 additional months until we can apply for Carte Vitale. So it’s looking like any Ortho type visit (and pre-GP for referral) will have come out of our pocket for this year but from what I understand, that “out-of-pocket” cost is still a fraction of what an “out-of-pocket” cost would be in the US. Thank goodness my husband and I are pretty healthy except for my darn knee. Which is going to go downhill fast this year I can tell. (used to get cortisone injections every 6 months in the US). So I gotta see what can be done or our exploration of all of France is going to be hindered quite a bit. 
Not my experience! It’s been wonderful. And yes you have to take the time to understand the French way of doing things, and not expect things to happen in the way you are used to. Most of the complaints I’ve read are people wanting it to work in exactly the same way as they are used to.
One advantage is that there is quite a bit of choice. So if you are not yet in the system you can go to any general doctor that will give you an appointment and it will cost €27, rather than €25 with a 70% reimbursement. Then, once you have a referral letter in your hand you can book anywhere in France. So if you can chose a central city, like Lille, and pop back and forth. You would need to be in one place for a couple of month for a replacement op to be able to get the physio rehab. But if you haven’t already had steroid infiltrations in the knee that could be a short teem option until settled.
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Oh wow that is awesome news! That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you so much for that. And yes, I totally hear what you are saying about expectations and luckily the Mr and myself pride ourselves on having none 
Phew, I’m breathing easier already
Hello @MJluvsFrance , welcome to France and SF!
I live in France but have quite a long knee history, under private treatment while living in Hong Kong.
Having badly damaged the knee in my early 20s, I needed a knee replacement in my 40s but was advised to wait for future technology. I had every remedial option to manage the constant pain and increasing immobility while I waited. Cortisone in the joint when things became too excruciating but was not recommended as a frequently repeated regime.
In 2010, aged 50, I had the TKR in Hong Kong. By 2019 this had worn out and the whole thing was replaced privately in UK. The longevity of the metal joint is usually 10-15 years.
The first op was two weeks in hospital with medical morphine painful. Plus about 3 months of physio and decreasing pain afterwards. The replacement op, a complete and larger set of metal, was only half as painful despite losing yet more leg bone, only one week in hospital and mobile within the month. I think the tech and the pain management has radically improved.
My advice would be to begin the voyage by finding an orthopaedic surgeon you like, as @JaneJones says, with referral from your MT. The surgeon will decide what MRI/CT scans etc he needs to fill the picture. If you have old X-rays, take them with you for him to see. Also take any medical history records you have regarding the knee.
Then you may or may not be on the path to having a knee replacement. It can happen quite fast in France, so don’t plan any trips until you know more from the consultant.
I would personally like to add here that although it is major surgery, it really is an operation practiced on many and the result, after short lived inconvenience and pain, can really be life changing. Today, my metal knee is my strongest. And any day without pain is a blessing!
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And read up in French before an appointment so you have the vocabulary (if you don’t already of course). There are many options with knees, and choices of materials, so be prepared.
And also don’t overlook the simplest options. I was struggling to bear any weight on one knee, but just had a simple arthroscopy as a first step - with a fantastic surgeon you specialised in olympic level athletes. He did a brilliant job that he reckoned would hold for 5 years - and that was 12 years ago. Pain doesn’t necessarily match the extent of the mechanical damage.
That is certainly true. I wonder if we feel physical pain a little less intensely as we grow old?
The first knee torn cartilage repair job is now almost always arthroscopic (keyhole surgery). It is a fairly simple op to save and pin the torn cartilage The tear is an injury causing inflammation in the joint that used to be known as ‘housemaid’s knee’. The body identifies the torn cartilage as foreign and tries to break it down with an acid solution. Pinning and saving the torn cartilage can radically prolong its life.
Unfortunately for me, a riding accident in my twenties resulted in a knee injury too complicated for arthroscopic surgery. I lost half my meniscus and 25% of the cartilage. After a few years my body began treating the joint as an enemy.
I had two remedial arthroscopic debridements while waiting for the first TKR. This involved filing down the bone spurs on each bone of the joint that had grown by the friction of bone on bone with no cartilage, having been entirely dissolved by the acids. Swift and painless recovery. Results lasted about 3 years each time.
I’m not sure at what stage @MJluvsFrance is but I too am sure that they will be in the best of care with French medical services.
Taking translations of terms, and I would suggest any questions, is an excellent idea.
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That’s what I had, due to synovial inflammation, and very successful. My surgeon proudly showed me before and after photos. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see his initials etched on the bone ends.
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Let’s not mention the excruciating surprise, never timely, event when a tendon gets hooked over a bone spur and you cannot move. Only scream 
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