Americans love to travel — around three-quarters of Americans have been to a foreign country, and more than one-quarter have been to five or more countries.
Whether it’s your first time traveling overseas or you travel internationally regularly, staying healthy while you’re abroad often requires a little extra effort, but the effort is well worth your while.
To help keep your focus on making the most of your trip, the team at Forest Urgent Care offers travel medication services and advice to help you prevent getting sick. Under the guidance of our board-certified providers, Dr. Ping Wong and Dr. Waiho Lum, our team can make sure that you have everything in place to make your next travel adventure a healthy one.
The first thing you should do is check on any special health notices for your destination, and a great place to start is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel website. Once you have a better idea about your potential needs, please come see us so we can make sure that you have the right vaccinations in place as well as any medications you need.
For example, you might want antimalarial pills, which can be used as prevention and treatment. To give you an idea about the threat of malaria, there were nearly 250 million infections in 2020 alone, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Or, we might want to update some of your vaccinations, such as tetanus or pneumonia.
During your visit, we can also go over any prescription medications you’re taking to make sure you have adequate supply for the time you’ll be traveling.
It’s always a good idea to travel abroad with a small medicine kit that should include:
You know yourself best and what you might need. If you have a sensitive stomach, load up on medications that can help ease digestive symptoms; if you have seasonal allergies, know that pollen from plants that are new to you can cause a reaction.
It’s also important to bring basic medical documents with you, such as a list of vaccinations, as well as prescriptions just in case you lose your medications.
Two of the most important international travel tips may seem to collide, but they can be managed with vigilance.
First, it’s so important to pay attention to hydration when you travel — you might be in different climates or altitudes, and your body needs extra water. And water helps energize you when you’re out and about.
Second, water is what gets many travelers sick, so you need to pay close attention to your sources. In Europe, there’s usually no problem, as our water is similar, but you shouldn’t drink tap water in Asian, African, or Latin countries. To be on the safe side, we recommend always drinking bottled water wherever you go.
And don’t forget to pay attention to things like ice in your drinks as well as vegetables that are washed in local water.
Other culprits behind travel sickness are mosquitoes and insects (think malaria and yellow fever), so it’s always a good practice to wear bug repellent. As well, you can minimize your contact with bugs with netting while you sleep and by covering up exposed skin.
To figure out what your travel needs are before your big trip abroad, we invite you to visit our clinic in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. You can walk in seven days a week or call ahead to schedule an appointment.
