Health Info

        General Travel Health Information       

Travelers' to developing countries should start with long-term basic health protection. This means vaccinations against Polio, Tetanus, Typhoid and Hepatitis A.
Other vaccinations will depend on where you are going, local conditions at that time, and your anticipated environment. 
Consult a health specialist or a travel advisory service and start early, a series of docrer visits may take up to six weeks to complete, so get on with it! Check links for the latest news.

Food and Drink

Force yourself to drink clean water, and lots of it, if you want to avoid headaches and lethargy from dehydration. In addition,say no to beer or wine they will have the opposite effect by dehydrating you even more.
Water requirements at home are six glasses per day, so multiply that figure by at least 3 in tropical environment. If you have trouble with the teast of water try to add a little limon to it. The limon will make you thirsty for more so drink up.

Food: Avoid ice cream from dodgy sources, raw fish, and food kept warm, salads and uncooked food - unless you can peel it or shell it yourself. Most cases of rampant diarrhea come from unhygienic food, not unclean water.

Eating in local restaurants in developing countries:
1] Start acclimatizing your intestines slowly. E.g. First day, do not eat street. Second day, try a small well-cooked snack. etc.
2] Eat where it is busy. This means that turnover is fast so fresh food has less chance to go bad in a hot climate [where there may be little or no refrigeration]. It also means that the food is good or cheap or both!

Suffering Ramses Revenge?

The Inca Two-step? Delhi Belly? Aka diarrhea...If there is time, do the natural cures:
Drink a lot of water.
For maximum absorption of water generally, add 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and 3 teaspoons of sugar to a liter [2 quarts] of water, and in the case of Ramses Revenge, double the salt and sugar levels. [Do not take salt tablets; they can cause stomach irritation and vomiting].
Do not eat for half a day at least, and then restart solids slowly, with plain, easily digested foods such as boiled, watery rice or plain bread. This will encourage your body to develop a stronger health defense system and Ramses will have more difficulty next time.

If you are in a hurry Lomotil/Imodium or similar works well - but does not kill the bug; it just stops your insides turning to water every thirty minutes.

Altitude Sickness:

Otherwise known as AMS, Acute Mountain Sickness. Here are some popular destinations where you might get AMS without climbing mountains: Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, and Tibet. The problem is lack of oxygen and is especially relevant to smokers and those with heart problems.

Symptoms:

Stage 1: dizziness, nausea, headaches, insomnia, breathlessness, loss of appetite.
Cure: rest, eat well, drink lots of water and do not ascend further. You will be fine in a couple of days. Probably.
Stage 2: dry cough, vomiting, confusion, loss of balance and co-ordination. Pulmonary oedema.

Cure:

AMS comes on slowly - over a day or two days so descend! On the other hand, see a doctor for medication.

Prevention:

Insurance Advice:

One in seven travelers on overseas trips does not have any insurance. This is madness, and I speak as one who has gotten sick three days befor I was to go home, had bags crushed once and had to cancel a trip due to a  family illness on another occasion. In every case, I was fully reimbursed by my insurers.
Problems and accidents are far, far more frequent abroad, and local assistance may be very costly. For example, a broken leg in the USA may cost up to $10,000, yet a year's worldwide insurance with a good company will cost well under $200. Me, I would rather skimp on home insurance than travel insurance.

Sunbathing:

Positive: Moderate sunbathing boosts vitamin D production, which may help protect the body against some cancers. New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory completed a study in 2007 indicating that UVB stimulates vitamin D production, helping to fight cancers of the breast, lung, colon and prostate.
However, moderate sunbathing does not include using sun beds [that tend to produce UVA radiation], nor overexposing to strong sunlight such as midsummer, midday rays.

Negative: There is no point in lying around in the sun at midday in the tropics or subtropics. This will not only earn you a good chance in the melanoma lottery and add an unpleasant red highlight to your tan, but it will probably burn the tan off altogether after a few days.
You will brown up more smoothly and lastingly by sunbathing before 11am and after 3pm. And you may live longer too.
'I never thought the price of getting a tan would be so high'

So, do not go in the sun in the middle of the day and be especially careful when swimming, snorkeling [wear a T-shirt], motor biking, and being wrecked on the beach.

p.s. Recent research in the US suggests that skin care products containing AHAs [alpha hydroxyl acids] increase the skin's sensitivity to sunlight in some cases, so be particularly careful about applying sun protection if there are AHAs in your choice of skin creams.

For more health travel and safety information go to the website below and Have Fun Will Travel.