Antimalarial Pills/Typhoid vaccine

[thisisfallingwithstyle]

Has anyone here taken antimalarial pills? I'm leaving for Belize in two weeks and I'm really torn about whether or not I should take antimalarial pills. All of them have nausea and v* as side effects, but from what I understand "malarone" is generally thought to have fewer side effects. I don't want to get malaria, and I'll be staying on an island off the coast of Belize (only inhabited by the occupants of a field research station) so theoretically I wont be in contact with mosquitos that have bitten anyone with malaria. This is the main reason I'm considering not getting antimalarial pills, but I just don't know what's riskier.

Also, I think I'm going to get the typhoid vaccine. Nausea and v* aren't listed as possible side effects, has anyone ever gotten this vaccine before?

Lastly, does anyone have recommendations for medication to help with seasickness? I'll take ativan before the plane and boat rides, and I have zofran but I'm not sure if that will help with nausea related to motion sickness.

[jkl81]

I really don't think you should avoid taking the anti malarial drugs. My dad is an entomologist and one of the researchers when he started working at his current lab about 35 years ago went to an endemic malarial area and got 2 or 3 strains at the same time and died. Not good. That having been said, some anti malarials have a high rate of negative side effects for people from certain ethnic or regional backgrounds. If you'd like I will get that info from my dad and repost tomorrow. But you really need to take something for it if it's an area where the disease is endemic. We're insulated from it in the US and much of Europe but in most of the rest of the world this is a disease that still kills a lot of people. Do yourself a favor and try to limit your exposure to mosquitoes if at all possible with or without the drugs. I have no experience with the Typhoid vaccine, but we have some globetrotting emets here who just might. As far as the seasickness, unless you are super prone to it, you should just take OTC Meclizine or Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine or Drammamine Less Drowsy) and try not to get too anxious. Easier said than done. I've been on a couple of offshore fishing trips and taken the dramamine and never threw up or came very close to it...but in most cases I had a lot of anxiety with it. I hope you do better, because the water is great and it's a shame not to enjoy it. If you're really worried you could get your doctor to prescribe some scope patches (scopalamine) which seems to be highly effective, so effective in fact that it has allowed my good friend's very motion sickness prone wife to enjoy cruises with him and his family. Anyway, hope I wasn't too rough on you about the malaria stuff, but I really don't want to see you go and get sick, and it is nothing to be messed around with. Your trip sounds really interesting. What are you up to if you can/want to tell us? Good luck and let us know how you fare for those who might wish to follow in your footsteps.

[ann32]

I would take the pills and the typhoid vaccine. I have taken them when I went to Africa and my husband many times for when he has to go overseas in the military. Neither us of had gotten sick and I was concerned. Sounds like a very very cool trip!

[thisisfallingwithstyle]

Thanks for the malaria info. The trip is for a 'Field Biology Quarter' that I'm doing this fall. I am a student at UCLA and field research is a requirement for my major. I'll be going with two professors and 14 other students, and we'll be staying at a field station run by the University of Belize on a small island off the coast. The objective of the field quarter is to create a research project involving ecology or animal behavior and to carry it out in the field.

I'll only be on the boat twice, once the day we travel to the island and once the day we travel back to the mainland. I was told it's a two hour boat ride. I am unsure as to whether I am prone to seasickness. I haven't been on a boat since I was really young and I did get sick that time, but I have never had any other type of motion sickness since then so I'm not sure how worried I should be.

As far as antimalarials having negative side effects for people of certain ethnic or regional backgrounds, I'm hispanic and caucasian and I've lived on the west coast of the United States my whole life. Do I fall in the "high rate of negative side effects" category?

Have you ever tried scopalamine? Do you know if it's more effective than dramamine? Getting a prescription isn't an issue, so if the patch will give me more peace of mind then I'll do that.

[jkl81]

Let me get you whatever info my dad has on it. The only reason I say that about certain ethnic backgrounds is that one co worker of his had high side effects when they did research in Panama back in the early 80s/late 70s. As you know there are a lot of antimalarial drugs and one or the other will suit you. As far as I know they aren't really awful drugs. I personally would take them even if it meant taking a chance with stomach symptoms versus a bad case of malaria. In any case avoid the mosquitoes as much as you can anyway, since malaria is not the only bad bug they carry. Let me assume you've had the vaccine for Yellow Fever and that you already know to use repellent and limit your exposure to mosquitoes as much as possible. When do you leave?