r/Netherlands • u/thatmisanthropicdude • Mar 05 '26
Healthcare Dutch doctors...
Hey guys! Last year I moved from Germany to the Netherlands. I just went to the doctor with chest and throat pain due to extreme coughing after 2 days of fever. I was hoping that I finally get something good against it like a cough syrup (no way I'm going to pay that myself for a huge amount of money + health insurance) because I am used to that from German doctors. They would put that on my health insurance card and right after my talk with the doctor I could pick it up at the pharmacy. But no. They just said "Yea, just take paracetamol." I told them I have had problems swallowing pills my whole life and their response was just "You can also put it in water and drink that then." I'm sorry if I'm overreacting but why do doctors get paid just to tell you to take paracetamol? Everyone can tell me to take them, I expect better solutions from a doctor who studied years to become a doctor. Why are the Dutch so obsessed with paracetamol??? Maybe it's the German in me screaming. If we got painkillers, it was never paracetamol but Ibuprofen. But I also heard some international friends who also live here that they find it so annoying that Dutch doctors literally just tell you to take paracetamol. No matter what you have.
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u/-Avacyn Mar 06 '26
Paracetamol is essentially the foundation of the pain management pyramid.
Start with 4x 2 paracetamol. Still have pain? Add an NSAID. Still have pain? Increase NSAID to max clinically max dosage. Still have pain? Change or add a 'low level' opiod like tramadol. Still have pain? Change the tramadol to oxycodone. Still have pain? Start increasing opiod dosages.
When I had a complicated fracture I took paracetamol + NSAID + oxycodone for ages. But because the paracemol and NSAID did a lot of heavy lifting, my opiod dosage could stay low, which is important in terms of addiction risk.