Yesterday, Marcia and I went down to the doc’s office to get our vaccinations for our trip to asia. Shots of Hepatitis A+B, Yellow Fever and Typhoid. and Malaria pills. After the first shot, i turned white and almost blacked out. I don’t know, in my old age, I just don’t like metal things sticking into my body. probably why piercings never took. A day later and my right arm is still aching from the Typhoid shot. I still don’t quite understand why I got that one. I tried telling the doc that I already had Typhoid. He muttered something about ‘being safe’ and got the needle in the arm.
Marcia did some research on our Malaria medication and turns out that chloroquine doesn’t work on asian strains of Malaria, so I’m on the internet hunt for an alternative.
Vaccinations are a strange thing.
Update: Folks, if you are traveling to a foreign country and there is a chance you will need vacs, do yourself a favor and do your research first. The CDC website is a good place to start. In our case, I didn’t do any pre-research, we made an appointment with a local “travel doctor” who looked up the vacs in a 30 pound text book from the 80s. This morning I went to the CDC website to find out that Yellow Fever is not a recommended vaccination. Further, the Malarial med that works in south east asia is called “doxycycline” and “azithromycin” can be taken for most stomach bugs.
Know-the-ledge, kids.
just watch out for “Lariam/Mefloquine” for malaria (I think) .. rumor has it you can end up with some overly vivid nightmares which are no fun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mefloquine