Help from experienced SEA travellers please, mixed reports
on what malaria tablets to take either Doxy or Mefolquine?
I have heard bad reports on the mefolquine ie Larium are
there any others out there that have had bad times on this
one? What did you do? I am travelling for a year all over..
please help I am leaving on the 31st of May. Thanks for any
help. Thanks to all the people out there who answered my
other lot of questions.
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It depends where in SEA you're going.....People here will
either give you horror stories (the minority of people who
shouln't take larium) or tell you how they managed not to
get malaria (while not mentioning they traveled in the dry
season).......try http://www.cdc.gov or look up the WHO
(more diffoicult to navigate) or better yet the health
links at this site.......I used to work at an infectious
disease lab that does malaria research and can tell you
right now, you won't get anything authoritative or
representative here...this is agreat place for border
crossings, visas, guest house...but serious health
???s...on the other hand....i know this great bridge in
Brooklyn, NY...I can get you a good price.
agree with rich,and i certainly don't have any medical
qualifications... but, if you're after a personal
experience, i took doxy and it made my skin photosensitive.
even wearing sunscreen hat etc, i got really burnt (to the
point of blistering). I have olive skin and don't usually
have any probs with sunburn. my dr. told me not to take doxy
again but pointed out that the side effect is not common and
i was just unlucky. who knows, but whilst you are travelling
people will always ask you which one you're taking and will
espouse their unqualified medical opinion. I suggest ask
your doctor (or visitng a travel specific medical centre)
for all the facts and make up your own mind. my b'friend
took a larium tablet prior to travelling (on his dr's
advice) to test for side effects before leaving, so if he
had problems he would have access to help. he had no
probs. have a good trip.
p.s. take some RID with you, we found it better than other
o/s brands of repellant.
Jaszie, remember Doxy is an antibiotic. It might fuck you
up when mixed with other stuff you ingest. Mefolquine is
what I used a few years back, but the 'horror stories' that
so many are laughing at these days aren't as far fetched as
you might think. Trust me, I'm a final year medical
student. You only have to look up some recent industry
journals. Have a good one.
Could you be a bit more specific about "just look at some
industry journals". Which ones and do you have references?
The general idea in medecine about mefloquine is that 20%
of patients have minor side efeects like vivid dreams, 5%
have to stop because side effects like palpitations of the
heart, dizziness, depression etc... About 1 out of 15.000
patients has severe side effects like psychosis and severe
depression. However, there has been an article published in
the Lancet where 1200 travellers were retrospectively
questionned, and it appeared that 2 of them had to be
hospitalised because of psychiatric symptoms. But again,
this was a retrospective report, so selection bias might
have been the case. So this study mentionned an incidence
of 1/600 instead of 1/15.000 like other studies.
Are you aware of other medical articles?
I'm not a doctor nor studying to be one but I did take Larium for two years while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. We were all told we would have no side effects from the drug, but EVERY volunteer did have them.
Everything from psychotic dreams, lathargia, dizzieness, floating spots. Various things that cleared up as soon as we stopped taking Mefloquine.
BUT, in some areas you have to take Larium as no other drugs will prevent malaria there. Even considering my side effects, I would still take larium in the areas it is recomended as the chance of getting malaria is worse and the cure itself is also very hard on your body.
So check the CDC and other on-line organizations. Recomendations for different areas vary greatly. You don't want to get malaria while you travel. Have a great trip!
I am a family practice resident in the USA. just did a 2 month block in Nan Thailand and in south India. I took larium for 5 weeks and then switched to doxycycline for 8 weeks. had no problem with either. There is some larium resistance in thailand. MAlaria is in SEA. There were 32 cases in one village where i visited and 3 child deaths. I would advise taking either and if you have side effects, then switch to the other
Mrs Hallsworth took Larium for around four months on our last
trip to Southeast Asia. Having heard all the usual horror
stories we were a tad aprehensive, but suffered nothing worse
than gut ache the day after each weekly dose.