Essential Travel Health Tips for a Safe Vacation

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, Well, live long and prosper. What is today’s Doctor Peter Mihalos like every Sunday, and he wants us to live long and prosper and to live to be one hundred at least. Doctor Peter Mihalos, what’s on your mind today?

0:16 Speaker 2 Well, today’s job we’re going to talk about travel safety. And one of the common things that happens when we travel is something called travelers diarrhea. And there are various bugs. The most common is called E. Coli, but the one that’s been in the news lely has been Cyclospora, which was found on a lot of different areas with lettuce.

0:34 And I always tell people that they have to understand that a lot of this actually happens because the people working in the field sometimes don’t have ready access to bathrooms and they actually use the fields as toilets sometimes, and that’s one of the ways a lot of these bacteria spread where there’s plants that are growing just above

0:54 the ground in these fields. And when you see some some other countries, they don’t have bathroom set up like in the US, A lot of these places have portable toilets and things like that. Some of these places don’t have that. So that’s why it’s very important to I tend to avoid when I go out of the country,

1:12 to avoid things like you know, lettuces and spinish and things that are going field unless I know specifically it’s a very high end hotel or restaurant where they’re really cleaning and washing things off, because you can get you know, traveler’s diarrhea. The good news is that the traveler’s diarrhea.

1:30 Good old fashioned pepto bismal works quite well because the bismuth actually does kill bacteria. And also good old fashioned cipparo works well on E. Coli. And as far as this outbreak in the United States with the cyclospora, good old fashion bactrum, which is two antibiotics in one celfa methoxsle and trimethoprine works and it basically kills the cell

1:51 wall of this bacteria. And our large intestine is where we absorb all our water reabsorb it so that when that gets infected or swollen, it can absorb the water and that’s why people get diarrhea when they get food poisoning.

2:04 And if you’re abroad, it’s important to consider iv hydration. You might even have to go to the hospital if you get really dehydrated, because dehydration can actually kill somebody. That’s why I always tell people when they travel abroad to always get a travel health insurance policy so that you can go to a private hospital and be covered

2:22 and also have coverage for medical evacuation. And these policies are very inexpensive. Other travel safety tips, of course, people get a lot of sunburn, and we know that squamous cell cancers and basal cells and melanomas happen from chronic exposure to UV light by a sunscreen, especially with little kids that’s SPF at least thirty up to fifty, and

2:45 that it’s a mineral based and the mineral based is not toxic to the skin, and you don’t get toxic things absorbed into your skin. And also where protective UV glasses that block UVA and UV so it slows down cataract formation. Wrap around glasses are the best. And of course a hat with a brim, because places that are

3:07 common for skin cancer are top of the ears, top of the cheeks, back of the neck, and the nose of course, and that’s why people who live in New Zealand get more skin cancers. On the right because they drive on the right side of the road. And here in the States, we get more skin cancers, left arm,

3:23 left face, on the left side because we drive on the left side. Also, when you travel, it’s good to bring your copies of your prescriptions or a picture of your bottles, because if you lose them. Most pharmacies, if you show them a picture of your prescription or the bottles, they will give you enough of a supply until you

3:41 get back home. And when people travel in case there’s bad weather or change in plans or some type of natural just as so like a hurricane, bring extra pills to have with you to be prepared. And the other thing I tell people is if you have a neck pillar or you have any neck issues, sometimes it’s good

3:59 to travel and pack one of your own little neck pillows because they make mini neck pillows that you can use on the plane to be more comfortable, and even in the bed to be comfortable. And some of the things to help speed up travel so you’re not waiting online and caring is try to apply for tsa PreCheck

4:19 so you don’t have to take your shoes off on the line, and you get through much faster, and you don’t have to go through the scatter radiation. You just go through a regular magnetometer. And the other thing is when you travel, if you can get global entry. If you’re traveling in Europe abroad, now with facial recognition, you

4:36 just walk up and the scans your picture and they tell you welcome home, and they tell you your name and you walk right through. You don’t even have to take your passport out. So technology has made things a lot better with things like clear and TSA pre check and global entry, and these are some of the things you

4:53 can do. And also when you rent a car, I always tell people find out which car you’re renting, and what I do is I quickly look up which car they’re giving me, and I see whether whether it’s in Europe or the United States, that it has a five star crash test rating for front and side. Especially when

5:09 you’re traveling with small kids and when you’re traveling with little babies, always get a rental car that offers the car seat options for children and small babies to protect them because when we’re abroad, you know, the trauma centers don’t exist like we have in the United States and many countries, so you want to travel safely and carefully,

5:31 and keep listening to w ABC for more of these health tips on living long and staying healthy.

5:38 Speaker 1 Well, doctor Peter, I mean there’s so many things. I mean, you travel aboard abroad, you should carry your medicines and et cetera, et cetera. But it’s not easy to travel abroad and take a lot of medicines with you.

5:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, no, I agree with you. That’s why you have to be organize and pack them and having a little pill organizer with the days of the week and you plan out your trip and it just makes it a lot easier. But you should at least have the pictures of your bottle because if you ever get opened up

6:12 by customs and they see the pills, they want to see that they came from a doctor in a prescription bottle, so you don’t have any delays if you ever get stopped in customs. So that’s another travel tip that you need to have the prescription or a picture at least of the original bottle it came from.

6:28 Speaker 1 Gotcha well, doctor Pina Medelos, Thank you and well God bless you, and thank you for making our listeners live longer.

6:39 Speaker 2 Thank you John for always getting the truth Out and in August our book The Death of Aging has an entire chapter on travel tips and safety looking forward,