France in Focus

I had my annual blood test done last week. Efficient as ever. Blood taken at 7.40 results available at 14.30
My results are as usual until page 4 (yes they do test a lot of things) and there is a massive number for TSH which is the thyroid general test.
My god I thought why haven’t they flagged it? Panic ensued.
24 hours of fretting later I compared it with the last one and the number is big on that one too. BUT when I stared hard at the numbers I realised that there was a mixture of commas and dots used as decimal markers.
The results were n,nnn the norm was 3.0 to 5.0 the last test was n,nnn
I looked at another result ALL the decimals were shown using a dot.
I looked at another result ALL the decimals were shown using a comma.
I looked at another test there was a mix of dots and commas.

Talk about inconsistent!
So I am in fact well within the norms.

I thought that dots were decimal places and commas used when the figures were above 1000

That's American Pathca, Europe usually has a comma after whole numbers.

There is a reasonable explanation here https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-use-fr ... on-4086509

Polarengineer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:16 amThat's American Pathca, Europe usually has a comma after whole numbers.

It's also in the UK - dots and commas swapped with regard to French. Here (CH) it is an apostrophe to separate the thousands and points for the decimal - though if you say "virgule" they seem to understand just fine.

As for OP - maybe results were transposed directly off the test equipment - some of which records results in US English? The nerve test machine they use here has English operation instructions and results.

I was surprised to see that a neighbour was installing 27,243m2 of solar panels and struggled to see which field they could be placed in. They were also going to be installed at up to 9m above ground level which sounded as though they could have really made a big difference to the location. Other neighbours also voiced concerns. As time passed the only change was a reasonably discrete solar panel on a small barn roof. I worked out its area to be about 30m2… Then it clicked, I’d been confused by the original number. To me 27,243 was an integer, had it been 27,24 I would have seen the decimal point. It was the three decimal points not the comma that confused me here.

In the UK a short while ago they altered the unit they reported Haemoglobin in on blood tests for example 15.1 became 151 12.4 124 etc luckily it was a fairly simple swap over

Another change here is blood pressure readings. When we first came, it was 12/8 but now it's 123/82 or whatever, as it's always been in the UK.

I agree with that change 10 can be significant on a BP. Say you medicate at 150,149 you are going to want a close eye on ,141 you might not be as concerned.The Old French system would show both as 14

Pathca wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:00 am I agree with that change 10 can be significant on a BP. Say you medicate at 150,149 you are going to want a close eye on ,141 you might not be as concerned.The Old French system would show both as 14

Our doctor still uses 13/6. Would 149 not be rounded up and give 15 as the result?