try Pharmacie De La Gare. This is the pharmacy up on Monivong near the Train station.
this would have to be one of the most reliable pharmacies in PNH.

does anyone know the khmer word for insulin?

Also try U-Care. You need to use a pharmacy with a cold chain of custody. Air-con and proper refridgeration are a must. Those are the only two I would trust in the country...

Depending on the length of assignment, he or she may be able to bring his own shots? Or plan on a side trip to Bangkok/Singapore once every three months to refresh the supply from a reliable source?

Re the refrigeration issue you can get a kind of gel-pack pouch these days that cools when water is added, and can be reused over and over. These are designed for carriage of heat sensitive drugs, particularly with diabetics in mind. One of those could be particularly handy once he/she gets here, in case they need to travel to the provinces. The gel-pack pouches come in various sizes and a good pharmacy in Australia, USA, Western Europe etc should be able to sort you out. I haven't seen them here in PP yet.

I expect that sterile syringes are available in Phnom Penh without a problem, though I've not had to buy any. Both PDLG and UCare would be the most likely places to get them too.

When you're at PDLG keep in mind that if it's not stocked they may be able to arrange them if given notice. I'm told that they can order in drugs with their regular shipments from overseas.

And you could check with SOS International and Naga Clinic, who surely have the shots themselves, whether they are happy to on-sell them to you, or else where they source them from.

Finally, the Khmer word for insulin is a grabbed word from French, roughly "ung-soy-lin" so that's fairly easy to get your mouth around.
("G_gsu‘ylÍn" in Khmer script, using Limon S1 - HTML font changes appear disabled on EAS, so you'll need to copy and paste this then change the font to see it & copy down on paper.)

BC

thanks guys

TRANSLATIONS AND LANGUAGE EQUIVALENTS

Diabetes: The Cambodian/Khmer term for diabetes translates as “sweet urine” or “sweet water urine”.

Blood Sugar: There is no Cambodian/Khmer term or concept for blood sugar, at least among villagers, probably because there is no treatment (insulin) available, and no machine is used to monitor blood sugar control. An interpreter may translate blood sugar to mean “sugar is in the blood” or “sweet blood” which sounds like “chim im” im = sweet; chim = blood).

Hypertension: The Cambodian/Khmer term for hypertension sounds like “le chim” and translates as “blood over limit” (le=over; chim=blood). It has been observed that patients sometimes refer to high blood pressure as relating to their diabetes and it may be that a distinction between blood pressure and blood sugar is not clearly made across languages.

Source: Ethnomad.org

A note on pronounciation... (every transcription system is different, there's no one way of writing Khmer sounds with Roman lettering).
For English speakers, it should be easier to pronounce these words with the following spellings:
Blood = chee-um
Sweet = ime (rhymes with "time"), short for pa-ime

Diabetes: "payk dtuk noam pa-ime" in Khmer.

Blood sugar: You should be able to get the idea across with "chee-um pa-ime" (sweet blood), or else try "mee-un s'gor k'nong chee-um" (have sugar in the blood).

Hypertension: my dictionary says "dom-naur laong chee-um" which means "causes increasing blood". "Leu chee-um" sounds more like what provincial Khmer would use, yes; it can also be translated as "high blood" and may be the result of foreigners making a direct translation of "high blood pressure" at some point in the past?

I guess, if it's a severe case of diabetes, what should be done in the first week is invest an hour and $5 in seeing a Khmer teacher with them, to ask about and write down how to pronounce all the important phrases your friend thinks they'll need.

BC

[Thanks for the EthnoMed link, Anthony. There's some interesting content there.]

Thanks to Vantha for supplying this graphic

Edit: This is insulin in Khmer - BC

Getting back to the main topic
A friend of mine who runs a 24hr bar/guesthouse is also a diebetic and stabs himself in the stomach 3 times a day with an insulin injector, he gets supplies here (PP) no problem.[/b]

Thanks Tony. Could you ask him for us, where he gets his supplies and whether he needs to make any special arrangements/advance notice to get them? (With that frequency he may have made a special standing order - that doesn't necessarily mean it's readily available for others).

Cheers
BC

oops, sorry, should've posted back here earlier ... ucare confirmed they can order these in, on a regular basis, price dependant on quantity/regularity of orders ...

just an update: friend has now arrived in PP. the ppl over at u-care sihanouke blvd have agreed to get a regular order in, but ythe u-care near the museum have now said it can't be done, despite earlier claims that they could ...

maybe their sales staff should get either better english training, or better product familiarisation training ...

U Care is an overpriced waste of time... Their pharmacists are totally retarded! PDLG is the only worthwhile place in PP

Did anyone find insulin pens in PP??