Seeking the Advice of a Travel Doc

Thursday, 24 March 2016
Advanced RV Resort — Houston, Texas

Our winter road trip is over.  I’m anxious to get settled in at our Port Aransas RV pad so I can dedicate some much needed attention to our RTW voyage.  But before I can do that, there is something we need to take care of here in Houston.  We are here for a very specific reason … to consult with a doctor at the Baylor Travel Clinic.

Exotic travel destinations sometimes come with inherent health issues.  We visited a travel clinic when we went on a photo safari to Africa.  With only three countries, and most of our time on that trip spent in Botswana, it was a simple matter of determining what precautions were advisable.

The RTW, with 45 or so countries on the itinerary, is far more complex.  So, there was no question in our minds about seeking the counsel of a doctor well-versed in the potential health pitfalls we might encounter.

The consult started with a review of the itinerary — provided beforehand — with Dr P and his entourage, which included a nurse/assistant and a medical student.  We talked about essential vaccines and prophylactics, as well as general health topics such as sunburns, mosquito bites, traveler’s diarrhea, mal de mer, and more … even discussed the potential for encounters with wildlife and cats and dogs.  Terrorism, too, made it into the conversation.

By the time the discussion was over, we felt considerably more educated and had a plan to help us stay healthy during the voyage.

The consensus was that I would get the yellow fever vaccine … Mui got his shot when he was in the USAF.  The doc agreed we didn’t need the Hep A vaccine since we had gotten it before our 2004 trip to Africa — good for our lifetimes.  For typhoid fever, he wrote us an ℞ for an oral vaccine — good for 5 years.  We opted for Malarone as a malaria prophylactic since we tolerated it well on our Africa trip.  Using our itinerary as a guide, Dr P carefully counted how many Malarone pills we would each need before writing up the order.  We skipped the vaccination for Japanese encephalitis, vowing to be diligent about using mosquito repellent where the disease is endemic.  An ℞ for traveler’s diarrhea — antibiotics in case we need them — and a promise to get the flu shot in the fall wrapped up our visit to the clinic.

Whew, we thought to ourselves as we paid our bill and left the clinic with updated vaccination certificates!  So much information to digest … and even more to read in the thick packets of information we were each given during the appointment.

Another ✔ for our RTW prep list … it sure feels good to be chipping away at it.

 

P.S.  Adding this note in October 2016.  We recently received a letter advising us that the Baylor Travel Clinic is no more.  Good thing we didn’t delay getting medical advice for our travels until this fall.

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