Travel Doctor - Vaccinations - Needles - Drugs - Pills - Pre-travel Preparation is the Key

I can’t afford to get sick while I am away.  I have a few down weeks here and there ( recovery from long or full on trips ) but I really don’t have the time or the inclination to handle a sick Bernie while I am away.

Pre-travel preparation is the key people……..

I am not a sick person by nature – I seem to have a pretty good immune system ( according to Dr Bernie ) and I rarely get sick when at home – short of the seasonal flu ( touchwood )

Most travellers need to seek medical advice 8 WEEKS prior to departure.

For those going to live or work overseas need to seek medical advice 6 MONTHS prior

For those leaving at short notice IT IS NEVER TOO LATE to seek advice

BUT apparently 50% of overseas travellers become ill while away from home …

People heading overseas, particularly to developing countries, are often at risk of diseases endemic to the places they are visiting. The diseases are mainly associated with:

Inadequate sanitation and hygiene and can lead to diseases such as Hepatitis A, Typhoid and Cholera, as well as traveller's diarrhoea.

In the tropics, mosquitoes carry diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever and Japanese Encephalitis.

Longer journeys or stays, particularly if backpacking or staying in budget accommodation, may involve other disease risk.

So no matter how careful one is – there are just some things that are out of our control.  In the BIG scheme of things it seems silly to me to be spending all this money on all the tours, airfares, hotels and cruises to scrimp on $1000 or so of vaccinations and malaria tablets and pills to keep me healthy while on the road!

In some instantces – some countries need proof of vaccination required for entry.

So what is a vaccine? 

According to my wonderful world of Wikipedia and Google research:

Vaccinations are methods of introducing antigens into your body to get your body's immune system to react to them by producing antibodies to kill them or inactivate them, which will give you immunity to the antigen. In other words, vaccinations can be shots (or other types of injections under the skin), liquids taken by mouth, or intranasal sprays that give you a small dose of something that can't make you sick itself, but is just like or similar enough to something that would make you sick if you got it in its normal form. They are given to you made with the right antigens to make you immune to the disease or infection from which you want protection.

The vaccine in a vaccination contains either a "dead" (inactive), or a weakened form of the potential invading microbe (viral or bacterial). These are called the antigens in the immune system.

Our bodies use these antigens (weakened/dead virus or bacteria) as templates to create the perfect antigen-fighting antibodies. When the antibody is shaped just right to be able to match up with, and hook on to that kind of antigen, it prevents us from getting sick even when the attacker is "alive" in the wild. The antibodies do this by holding on to each antigen and disabling its ability to attack and link up with our cells. Meanwhile, other immune system cells help in the fight and clean up the debris.

A healthy immune system remembers the pattern for every antibody that it has made (either as a result of vaccines, or those created from actually having had exposure to the pathogen in the wild). It can make these antibodies when it detects the same or similar microbes in the wild (normal strength) because of the "immunity" you have from the stored patterns. If these microbes enter the body in the future, the immune system can very quickly find the right pattern and start making the matching antibodies. That way, the immune system can quickly make those matching cells again to protect us from that same specific microbe (and sometimes strains that are very similar).

GO IMMUNE SYSTEM right!!!  Amazing how our bodies work.  I ain’t going to question with what has been proven and tested – but it does sound weird that tomorrow night I’m heading to the doc’s to get my first of 3 jabs of Rabies over a 3 month period.  One serve of Rabies coming up!!!!!!

Above and beyond that I have already been tested for Turberculosis to document my immunity before travel.  I then will get the test repeated 3 months after I return to make sure I am still unaffected. 

Polio is up to date

Tetanus, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough is up to date

Measles, Mumps and Rubella is up to date

Chickenpox – check

Hepatitis A – check

Hepatitis B – check

Yellow fever – check

Additional to the above I will need to get:

The good ol’ influenza – we are leaving this one till later so I can get the next years strain

Need to update my Typhoid

Meningitis

Need to update my Cholera

Rabies – over 3 months

Malaria:  This can be done various ways – I will be doing the good ol take tablets 2 weeks prior – during the trip and 2 weeks after the trip – this is the most cost effective as I will need approximately 20 weeks worth of pills!  There is an alternative of one tablet per day but at $5 a pop at 20 weeks ( $700.00 ) I have to draw the cost line somewhere and take on the inconvenience of popping a few extra pills to keep that cost down.

 All in all – GO to the travel doctor if you are travelling off the beaten track.  You just cannot put a price on your health at the end of the day.

Safe travels xx