Well, new update. I know I know, it's an old one but boy, this driving license story doesn't seen to have a end !!!!
A year ago, I started to fight to make a law change.
In two words (I won't make a lecture about French law, but a few words won't harm), the law about driving under narcotics doesn't make any kind of difference between a medical treatment like morphine, Ritalin etc... and narcotics like LSD, ecstasy etc....
Clearly speaking, if I take my Ritalin to prevent my cognitive impairment from showing up while driving, I am considered as in offence because the test for narcotics detect a false positive, despite prescription. I am punished for curing me, even if I have the ok from the medical board for driving license.
Completely crazy, I know !
So, I had to contact the American researcher which conducted and made publish all the studies about driving and ADHD in peer-reviewed journals, after I had to write to the ex Ministry of Justice (he is now a depute), we had a completely odd answer from a written question addressed to a minister (
I had to find by myself the legal texts currently in vigor to explain why the answer in itself is completely odd and doesn't solve the problem), now we are waiting for a reply from the French Ombudsman of Republic.
And still, this story doesn't seem to end !
Because I also had to solve a second problem (this time about the medical exam itself), like if one problem weren't enough ! I had pericarditis (viral and dry ones, very tricky to diagnose even from the cardiologist) and in the user's leaflet, it's a precaution of use for Ritalin. But as soon as your medical file is atypical, physicians in this kind of medical exam often try to find the slightest thing to mess up everything, in order for you not to get the license. Even if there is nothing behind. So I had to convince my GP (story of Social security : otherwise, I'll spend a delirious amount of money, exams in cardiology are quite expensive. But to have the full refund, I have to get a referral from my GP) to accept that I see the approved specialists before the medical exam for driving licence (psychiatrist and cardiologist), that the aim is not absolutely changing specialists but letting my driving license story go ahead.
She suggested me that my psychiatrist and cardiologist (I see the cardiologist very rarely, only when my GP suspects a problem. It happened only twice, so....) write a letter to explain that my history of pericarditis is not a problem for Ritalin. I replied that theoretically, her idea is a good one, but in practice, the physicians for driving license (as I told before, they are 2 GPs, approved from the prefect of the department) will quibble that the two specialists are not approved for driving license, so they'll get a great motivation for sending me from a specialist to another. So, since we want to avoid at all cost this kind of craziness (it's already enough crazy like that, no need to add further craziness to all this mess), the only solution it remained is seeing the approved specialists before the medical exam with the two GPs.
My poor GP (I hope she won't get a heart attack from such a craziness) couldn't believe that physicians for driving license can bug a patient for a pericarditis....
All this stress had deteriorated my health : I had lost so much weight (only 41 kilos for 1,52m, which is not much) that my GP was fearing a bad avitaminosis, I didn't sleep well at all (I had to take an hypnotic), and well, I had no one to help me, except of course my GP and psychiatrist (when I see her, which is not so easy : ADHD is not neither well known nor recognized for adults among the vast majority of French physicians. So the only 2 hospitals for adults who can diagnose and treat ADHD adults have a tremendous waiting list.....).
I had to rely only on myself to put myself together : I had no other choice but this or being at hospital. At this time, I was trying at all cost to avoid to have to be hospitalized, so I had to find in my deepest side the way to go back on track. Otherwise, my health would have deteriorated itself even greater.
It was so hard. Sometimes, I wish I had something but ADHD : if I had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I wouldn't have been in such a mess for my driving license or to have my 100% at Social Security.
I don't say that bipolar disorder is fun (no neuropsychiatric illness is fun) but with bipolar disorder, administration never treats you like if your psychiatrist gives you this diagnosis to make you become a drug addict (I heard more than once at administration that my psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADHD to make me become a drug addict. Wow, those guys are even crazier than psychotic patients !!!).
Each small stuff with administration becomes itself a craziness, and of course, French association for ADHD does everything but help (they asked me to make a fake declaration in the health form for driving license. Of course, I refused, because in case of accident, I'll have to pay everything because there won't be any insurence to pay. Well, the president told everyone in the association that I have to be sectioned under the French equivalent of Mental Capacity Act, and this, I knew it only because a so-told-good-friend told me it. The same so-told-good-friend who told me like if she were a physician that it's my fault if I caught a pericarditis, it's because I am too stressed. The cardiologist was absolutely shocked to hear such a story, she took her head between her hands and blew : "what we don't need to say !").
Incredible, I know. And I can sometimes wonder if it's only a dream or if it's the terrible truth. And if, one day, I'll be able to see my rights recognized without having to fight alone for them. Alone, without anyone to hug me when I collapse and cry because my health is deteriorating, or when I believe I would never recover when I'm sick.
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