Monday, April 12, 2010

What do do when you get sick on vacation?

No one wants to think about this but it can happen. It happened to me on a cruise. It's just good to plan ahead.

How to plan ahead depends on where you are going. If you are going somewhere where medical attention is readily available then maybe all you need is to figure out where the nearest urgent care center is. If you're going somewhere where it's not available you may need to be more vigilant.

I highly recommend travel insurance. It's usually inexpensive and saved me a lot of money on a recent cruise.

You may want to bring a first aid kit. I always bring any medication I think I might need while travelling.

If you are going somewhere where you might get travellers diarrhea you might want to ask your health care provider for antibiotics to take if needed.

If you are going on a cruise you might want to bring motion sickness medication, although this is available on the ship.

If you have any medical problems you might want to bring a copy of your medical records. At the bare minimum you should know what your medications are.

A little bit of preparation can be the difference between a minor blip in your vacation and a ruined vacation.





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2 comments:

  1. Also worth noting that if you do take medication with you, make sure it's legal in the country you're going to or that you have appropriate paperwork for it. One example of this is Codeine, which is widely available over the counter here in Blighty, but is controlled (and even illegal) in other countries.

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