Tag Archives: travel medicine

the travel doctor

8 Oct

On Friday afternoon, Brian and I paid a visit to the travel doctor in preparation for our upcoming Nepal trip. Can you tell by the photos above what a baby I am with shots and what a badass Brian is? You would think that with five tattoos, I would behave way cooler around a needle than this. But no, I turned my head like a wimp and let out an audible sigh when pricked. Brian, on the other hand, gave me that “no big deal” look when receiving his shot. Although in my defense I did have to get THREE different shots ( Hep A, Hep B and Tetanus) and Brian only had to get ONE, since he was up to date on the others.The whole experience was quite a shock to the system. I left the office feeling incredibly prepared for illness as well as terrified about all the possibilities.

During our visit, I learned that we will be in areas where we could contract Malaria, so we got a prescription for Malarone pills to prevent this. These pills can have psychiatric side effects! That should be interesting!

Speaking of prescriptions, we each walked out of there with seven others. We could start a clinic over here with all our pills!

– We have vaccine pills to prevent contracting Typhiod fever

– We have Diamox to prevent altitude sickness

– We have Medrol in case despite our efforts to prevent altitude sickness we still get altitude sickness

– We have Tamiflu in case we catch the flu while there

– We have Zithromax in case we need antibiotics when there

– We have Ondansetron for nausea

– and lastly we have Florastor which are probiotics for our stomachs

As if getting three shots and talking about Malaria wasn’t fun enough, I also had to pay a $435.00 dollars for my visit. I mean, seriously?!

When we got home from the doctor’s appointment, Brian happily walked around the house in his new hiking boots to continue breaking them in for the trek and I googled Typhoid fever and poured myself a glass of wine. Says so much, huh?

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