Drinking water or not?
Have any of you been aware of serious Travelers Diarrhea issues with water or food in So. Africa?We are leaving soon, & we are excited but want to be as prepared as possible. Bottled water only, coffee? Salads? Thanks.
0
Have any of you been aware of serious Travelers Diarrhea issues with water or food in So. Africa?We are leaving soon, & we are excited but want to be as prepared as possible. Bottled water only, coffee? Salads? Thanks.
Comments
Only drink bottled water. Tauck always supplies plenty. All food given to you at the hotels is safe. Take your usual kit in case you do get diarrhea, example, immodium, rehydration salts, Cipro.
Tap water is safe in cities like Cape Town,Jburg in SA. Safari lodges only drink bottled water. I have a strategy to put a sock over the faucet in the bathroom tap to remind me not to use that water when brushing my teeth. There is a product called Travelan that allegedly can prevent or at least minimize the effects of E. col, shigella, and other baddies. Take a capsule before every meal. When out in the bush, I steer clear of uncooked veggies and only eat fruits that I can peel.
Be sure you get a typhoid vaccine and make sure you are up to date on your Hepatitis A titers. Have fun.
We are just wrapping up SA elegant adventure. While the hotels/lodges/restaurants were all lovely and we never drank or used tap water anywhere, something made my husband and at least 4 others sick enough to have to sit out a whole day and not leave the room. And there were least 3 others who weren't as sick but uncomfortable enough to take their antibiotics. Not sure what the suspect was but from that point on we avoided the salad and fresh veggies everywhere, even at the 5 star hotels. Same with any fruit except ones you can peel.
This isn't a criticism of Tauck at all because they can't control it and clearly where we stayed everywhere was top of the line, but all it takes is one accidental washing of tomatoes or lettuce in tap water or the like and the dominoes can start falling.
The big takeaway for us was how important it is to bring a prescription antibiotic with you, which can have your doctor or a travel clinic provide. And, we were told by the many doctors on this trip, to start taking it as soon as your problems start. That seemed to get everyone who talked about it up and running after the meds kicked in. Better sitting out only one day and not a few.
I’ve read the pages of research on Travelan. It is Bovine colostrum, the first milk that mammals produce including humans. Do your own research before just buying this product. It does seem to be effective in protecting a good percentage of monkeys that were used in experiments. However, Travelan do mention important contraindicated conditions that many Tauck customers may have, here is an excerpt from them
Side effects and contraindications
Travelan® contains cow’s milk proteins, lactose and glucose. The amount of lactose in Travelan® has been reduced to 10% compared to about 50% in skim milk powder. Therefore do not take Travelan® if you have an allergy to bovine protein or are lactose intolerant, due to the presence of milk protein and lactose in the product. Similarly for diabetics, the amount of glucose per caplet is about 50mgs.
We experienced diarrhea on one Africa trip that was likely a reaction to Malaria meds which we had taken many times on previous trips. I had to resort to antibiotics. We both stopped the Malaria meds and the diarrhea got better. A few days later, my husband re commenced the Malaria meds as we were headed to Victoria Falls where we had encountered mosquitoes twice before, but as soon as he started again, the diarrhea returned. Could the people on your trip have experienced this rather than infection?
I always take the pink Pepto-Bismol tablets for traveler's diarrhea when I travel. It is OTC over the counter.
Google: " Pepto-Bismol for traveler's diarrhea" . Note: stool color can turn black from the digested Pepto-Bismol -- you are not having a gastrointestinal bleed. You can take it before loose stool / diarrhea or after it occurs. I would attempt to treat or prevent with Pepto-Bismol before antibiotics.
… sometimes Pepto doesn’t work and a prescription is necessary such as Lomotil.
agree, sometimes Pepto Bismol does not work. Lomotil is antimotility and slows down the GI tract -- it is not an antibiotic. Pepto Bismol is another option / medication in the arsenal of traveler's diarrrhea treatments.
In response to the question whether the issues may have been caused by anti-malaria medication, I don't think so. Not everyone in our trip took it and those who did all - including us --'seemed to start it in CapeTown as you are supposed to take it a few days before exposure. The sicknesses all happened days 3-4 in the Kruger and day 1 in J''burg, well after the medication had been started and been taken for almost a week.
Thanks for your clarification Jill, ours did not begin for days.
I was so scared of getting rampant diarrhea as I had done in Namibia, which caused me to be stuck in a room and miss a game drive, that I went against everything I have been saying for years and my husband and I did not take malaria meds on our Africa trip in July. We’ve taken Malaria meds for many of our trips with no problems. This time, as usual, we covered our arms and legs with clothing and used Deet on the exposed skin, which of course was not much skin. The rest of our family, seven of them, took malaria meds. After several days, our son in law started with GI symptoms. After a couple of days of him getting worse, I told him to drop the malaria meds and gave him Cipro to take which is what I did in Namibia, by the next day, he was improving rapidly. In Namibia, I did not want to start taking the Cipro, but the TD, a very experienced Namibian, two nurses in our group and me a former nurse, realized that I was not winning trying to stay hydrated. I was drinking fluid with hydration salts, still not improving. Many miles away from even being able to get an IV, I caved in and took the Cipro as they wanted me to. Thank goodness, I rapidly improved.
Who knows whether we got a bad batch of generic malaria meds, generic meds are allowed to vary somewhat from the original in their formulation. At this point, will I ever take malaria meds again, I don’t know. All I will do is cover up, which many people we travel with in Africa don’t do. They may be taking malaria meds, but that does not protect them from mosquitoes carrying yellow fever or tsetse flies carrying sleeping sickness. I’ll be in Africa again next year, I can’t keep away!