The Medical Kit for Trippers
Monday, March 3rd, 2008Make your own medical kit and keep it small - just what you need to get through any bad times/emergencies until you next get to a pharmacy. Pharmacies abroad are normally excellent, easily located and 9 out of 10 times someone there will speak English, Spanish (in Latin America) or French (in West Africa). So while away or before you head off, pick up only a couple of doses/treatments of the following suggestions:
Lip salve with sun protection, cold/flu pills (with decongestant), something for a sore throat, plasters (band aids), condoms or contraceptive pill (see below), antiseptic/antibiotic cream, laxative, diarrhoea blocker, Pepto-Bismol or similar (Bismuth: upset stomach and diarrhoea reliever, pill form easier to carry), Hydrocortisone cream (2%) or something else to treat insect bites, a needle (maybe part of a mini-sewing kit) for blisters, perhaps a forehead digital thermometer and of course some pain killers.
If you feel you’ll need them, then to the above list you can add: anti-fungal cream, travel/motion sickness pills, (on longer trips) mouth ulcer (aka canker sores) treatment (especially if taking Chloroquine malaria medication), anti-histamine pills and syringes and needles (but don’t go mad and only if really heading off the beaten track - generally these are not something you really need to carry around with you).
Don’t forget that all things medical are available much cheaper and plentifully on the way. There is very little point in weighing yourself down with a huge first aid kit. For example Salbutamol/Ventalin inhalers are available in major Asian cities at a quarter of the European price. The same goes with anti-malarial’s in Bangkok, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and similar places. If you need to carry unusual prescription medicine, check it is legal in the country you are visiting. Take a prescription and a doctors note in case you are stopped by Customs. - For ideas and details of Malaria medication see the before you go section, but as a general note, this can be bought cheaply in Asia/Africa too.