You’ve caught the travel bug and you’re planning your escape. You sit at your desk and imagine: sunning yourself on polar-white sands, trekking through verdant jungles, exploring breath-taking temples and inhaling the sweet, pungent aroma of a Vietnamese toilet bowl…wait, this shouldn’t feature in the holiday memory bank! Everyone loves a good travel story, but if you want to avoid diarrhoea-drama then read on because Dr Gigi Taguri from Lloyds Online Doctor is answering your travel medicine queries so you can stay safely in your Zen-zone.
What vaccinations and malaria tablets do I need for my holiday?
I’ve provided the travel advice for your most popular destinations below (I’m a little jealous!) but always check with your GP for vaccination advice before you leave. Make sure you’re also up to date with all routine immunizations: measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.
Thailand
Shots: You need Hepatitis A and B shots for all long trips. You can get Hepatitis A from unclean food and water, and Hepatitis B can be spread through contaminated medical instruments or blood transfusions. With rabies, Thailand is high risk, but vaccination is only needed for long holidays, if you’re volunteering with animals or if you’re not near a hospital. You may also need a shot for the Japanese Encephalitis virus – transmitted through mosquitoes – but this is only endemic in Northern Thailand.
Anti-malarials: There is some risk of contracting malaria in Thailand, and anti-malaria tablets are recommended if you’re traveling to rural, forested areas which border Cambodia, Burma and Laos. More than one medicine is suitable, and at Lloyds we can provide prescriptions for the most widely recognised anti-malaria tablets. To help you make your decision you can also check out our comparison table.
Morocco
Shots: As well as Hepatitis A and B, it’s also possible to get typhoid through contaminated food or water so if you’re an adventurous eater, or staying in smaller or rural areas for a long time, get your typhoid shot.
Anti-malarials: There is a very low risk of contracting malaria here, so take the usual precautions which involve using a repellent containing DEET, and wearing longer clothes in the evenings. See also our ‘ABCD’ steps to minimizing exposure to mosquito bites.
Peru
Shots: Hepatitis A and B as well as typhoid are recommended for Peru and if you are heading East of the Andes you will need Yellow Fever too.
Anti-malarials: If you’re traveling to North and North-eastern regions of Peru, you will need anti-malaria tablets. Again, more than one anti-malaria medicine is suitable and so before you leave find out which anti-malaria tablets are best for you.
I get terrible travel sickness on buses and planes, is there anything I can do to help combat this?
Travel sickness can put a real damper on your holiday before you’ve even touched down on new turf. Try these simple preventative measures to reduce your chance of feeling sick on the move:
- Keep motion to a minimum if possible i.e. sit in the front of a car, over the wing of a plane, or on deck in the middle of the boat and do not read or watch a film
- Don’t stare at moving objects such as waves or other cars. Instead, look ahead, a little above the horizon or at a fixed place
- One technique that has been shown to work in a clinical trial is to breathe deeply and, while focusing on your breathing, listen to music
If you’d rather try a medicine, there’s plenty of natural and prescription remedies out there:
- Anti-emetic drugs can help but need to be taken before travelling. You will need a prescription so see your GP for advice
- A Hyoscine patch can combat travel sickness but this needs to be applied a few hours before travelling
- Ginger can improve motion sickness in some people. It can be eaten in a biscuit or as crystallised ginger, drunk as tea or taken as tablets before a journey
- Promethazine is an antihistamine which has a good effect on motion sickness but is quite sedative. Cyclizine and Cinnarizine may leave you less sleepy
I’m going travelling around India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. How can I avoid getting sickness and diarrhoea?
Around 50% of young adults travelling in developing countries will suffer from traveller’s tummy or ’Dehli Belly’- as it’s known among Asian explorers – characterised by nausea, vomiting, and fever. Not the best welcome to your exotic destination! If you find yourself ejecting liquids from every orifice, remember my top tips to trump (sorry) traveller’s diarrhoea:
- Stock up before you go: Failure to prepare is preparing to fail…and if you’re not prepared for when your body fails you, it could be a very messy holiday indeed! Imodium can help treat diarrhoea when access to toilets is scarce. However, don’t overuse this medicine with infective or vial diarrhoea as your body has its own mechanism to rid itself of the component. Pack Buscopan to relieve any cramps from traveller’s diarrhoea, and Dioralyte to replace salts and water lost by the body through sickness.
- All hail the banana: If you’re caught short abroad without medicine, bananas are great if diarrhoea has stripped your body of essential salts and electrolytes. The World Health Organization recommends bananas to combat sickness in developing nations because the electrolytes present (inorganic compounds like sodium, calcium, potassium) help restore fluid levels in the body.
- Be smart with your food: Eating street food abroad can be great but try to stick to places where it’s prepared in front of you, so you know it’s cooked thoroughly. Also, follow the queues- the food won’t have been sitting out for as long.
- Bottle it up: Check here to view water safety guidance for different countries and if in doubt, buy bottled! Be sure to wash your hands and brush your teeth with bottled water, and avoid ice cubes in bars. The simplest way to purify water is to boil it first.
Not sure what’s going on down there? Don’t leave it too late to find out… Click here to submit your confidential sexual health queries to Dr Gigi. These questions will be answered on September 19th. And don’t forget to follow @LloydsOnlineDoc
Lloyds Online Doctor provides women with consultations for repeat prescriptions for the contraceptive pill or patch, treatment for weight loss, stop smoking and cholesterol for only €25. Launched in July 2013, the service has treated over 20,000 Irish patients so far. To find out more about the service visit https://www.lloydsonlinedoctor.ie
