How to Prevent (and Prepare for) Health Problems While Traveling

Amidst a pandemic, you are probably already thinking about how to prevent and prepare for health problems while traveling. However, you now not only have to contend with the usual travel illnesses but also the ongoing pandemic. There are plenty of sure-fire ways to prevent and prepare for illnesses related to travel.

Mask Up

You’re going to do this anyway, but wearing a mask on an airplane is a good idea. The airflow inside a plane is notoriously bad, often resulting in people catching whatever bug the person sitting 20 feet behind them is experiencing. While you can take all kinds of vitamins and supplements to ward off sickness when you get on a plane, a mask over your nose and mouth is the best impediment to any bug traveling around the inside of an aircraft.

Test for Allergies

It may sound silly, especially if you’ve never had hay fever a day in your life, but allergies are something to consider when traveling. For example, someone living in the Midwest may never have experienced an allergy to saw grass or palm trees, while someone living in Texas may never have experienced an allergy to pine and cedar trees common to Northern Washington state.

Ergo, you should schedule allergy testing before your trip. Ask your doctor to test for allergens common to your destination location. If you have any other allergies to things in that location’s environment, your doctor can prescribe a medication to help ward off those allergies even before you land by plane or arrive by ground transportation.

Be up to Date on All of Your Shots

Tetanus, Diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, etc., are still thriving in other countries. If you travel out of this country to another, you want to know for sure that you are protected. It also helps to get extra shots for illnesses you don’t and can’t get at home, such as malaria and dengue fever. If you have all of the necessary shots, then you are far less likely to contract anything present and running rampant in other countries.

Take a Well-Stocked First Aid Kit

Your carry-on is subject to search if you have a first aid kit in it, but you can put the kit in your checked bag with no travel interruptions. In that travel kit, you should have: pain relievers, bismuth tablets (for heartburn, nausea, indigestion, and diarrhea), over-the-counter allergy pills (if your doctor doesn’t give you a prescription), bandages, anti-itch creams, sunburn lotion/cream, motion sickness tablets, blister bandages, anti-chafing stick, and bug spray.

Drink Only Bottled Water

Your stomach is not adapted to water sources anywhere else in the country. It would take you at least two weeks for your stomach to adjust to the water from the tap in your destination location, and even then, it could only adapt if the water was safe to drink. Take a refillable water bottle with a built-in purifier just in case you can’t buy bottled water where you are going. Then you will always have water that your stomach will tolerate and not cause you to develop lower gastrointestinal upset.