Playing Doctor

Be prepared. ~Girl Scout & Boy Scout Motto

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably pretty incredibly accident prone. I have fallen down stairs, had sprained wrists, and gotten surgery on my ankle. My most embarrassing moment in college was when I passed out in the dining hall at peak lunch hours after donating blood at the Carolina/Clemson blood drive. What was possibly more mortifying was being wheeled out of the dining hall with everyone staring as I drowned my sorrows in a glass of orange juice the nurse gave me (hey, anything for a freebie!).

With this in mind, I brought an emergency medical kit filled with basic supplies in case my clumsy self took a tumble on the way to the summit. My medical kit included nail clippers, Qtips, tissues, eye drops, hand sanitizer, tweezers, ace bandage wraps, an ankle compression brace, band aids of various sizes, gauze, Neosporin, medical tape, moleskin (for blisters), an IcyHot roller, scissors, and a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide. 

You can purchase a pre-made Adventure Medical Kit to make sure you don't forget any essentials. This kit is good to have around your house or apartment in general in case of minor injury.

To ease aches and pains as well as headaches, I made sure to bring more than enough Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Also, Tylenol PM was a must have, especially for the long plane ride to and from Tanzania. 

Because prescription medicine such as blood pressure medication, birth control, insulin, anti-histamines, and your Malaria pills are incredibly important, storing them where they won’t be exposed to water is crucial. Kilimanjaro weather can be unpredictable, so I stored my most important items like medications, water purification tablets, and my passport in an Otterbox waterproof case. They range from $20-$35 depending on the size you purchase, but if you find yourself in a torrential downpour, you will really thank yourself for spending that extra cash.

I also kept batteries, a digital clock, a Maglite, and my trusty head lamp in the watertight box. A headlamp is an absolute necessity for your Kilimanjaro or camping adventures. I wore my brother’s Petzl LED headlamp every night after dark when I ate dinner, rummaged around the tent, or wrote in my journal. Also, the day where you trek to the summit is done completely in the dark in the middle of the night (details to follow in later posts), so you must have a headlamp to make the nocturnal journey. Petzl headlamps come in fun colors so you can pick one to coordinate with your cute jacket.

With a quality headlamp to guide your steps and a medical kit in case you stumble, you will be well on your way to reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro.

Adventure Medical Kit

Icy Hot will ease your aches and pains on your hike

Otterbog watertight box to keep your valuables safe from rain

Maglite flash light

Cute colorful headlamps will be key to lighting your way

Tylenol Extra Strength Rapid Release Capsules will help headaches you may experience from altitude

A Pill a Day Keeps Altitude Sickness Away

Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.  ~Karl Marx

I thought that after I got my general Tanzania vaccinations I would be good to go for hiking Kilimanjaro. Wrong! There were still a few things I needed to do to prepare myself medically.

Attitude sickness can be a hiker’s worst nightmare. Altitude sickness is a major contributor to preventing 50% of hikers from reaching Gilman’s Point (18,600 feet) which is less than an hour from the summit. It’s also a reason why only roughly 40% of hikers make it to Uhuru Peak (19,334 feet). Because altitude sickness can prevent you from reaching your ultimate goal of the summit it needs to be taken seriously and prepared for.

Symptoms of AMS (acute mountain sickness) include headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, disturbed sleep, and general discomfort. Altitude sickness especially affects those who are pregnant, have cardiac or lung disease, or ocular or neurological conditions. Be extra careful if you qualify for one of these characteristics! Learn more about causes, symptoms, and treatments at U.S. National Library of Medicine's page on AMS.

Looking for a recommendation on a type of medication to lessen the symptoms of AMS? I wouldn’t be caught on Mount Kilimanjaro without Diamox (pharmacological name: Acetazolamide). Diamox is a diuretic, sulfa drug that accelerates acclimatization. While most people don’t start to experience symptoms of altitude sickness until they reach 10,000 feet, I took my doctor’s recommendation and started taking Diamox the first day of the hike so I could get it into my system and let my body could adjust to it.

To learn more about Diamox, visit U.S. National Library of Medicine and WebMD.

If you want to stay safe, one other medical necessity is ensuring that you’re drinking clean water. Because the water you drink on Kilimanjaro is mainly collected for the freshwater sources on the mountain, it’s absolutely necessary to purify the water. Hand powered purification pumps are on the expensive side, so I opted to use Katadyn Micropur Purification Tablets which I purchased at REI. These tablets will destroy bacteria, viruses, as well as other impurities. 

Do you cringe when you accidentally swallow pool water? Because chlorine is the active ingredient in the purification tablets, the taste of the water is less than desirable. One of the best tricks I can offer you to covering up the chlorine taste is by adding Crystal Lite On-the-Go packets to give the water a delicious flavor. Fruit punch and lemonade were my flavors of choice, but Cranberry Apple and Strawberry Orange Banana sound tasty as well!

Want to know if I experienced symptoms of altitude sickness on my Kilimanjaro adventure? Read future posts to find out!

Diamox Tablets to treat symptoms of altitude sickness

Yummy Crystal Life On-the-Go Packets

My favorite water bottle that I carried all the way up Kili! It's cute & eco-friendly!

 

Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots...Everybody!

If you are too smart to pay the doctor, you had better be too smart to get ill.  ~African Proverb

So I’m guessing that you, like most other people, don’t enjoy gets shots at the doctor. Let’s face it, getting shots is not a fun activity. Just the anticipation of getting shots is painful in and of itself. Because nobody enjoys this part of traveling, I’ll make this post as painless and simple as possible!

I went to our on campus health center eight weeks prior to departure to get my medical clearance. I was fortunate that my university’s health center has a travel clinic in it specifically for students traveling abroad. Most universities probably offer travel vaccinations, however not all doctors’ offices are familiar with these special vaccinations.

Are you planning on visiting your general physician for travel vaccinations? If so, make your appointment well in advance of when you actually need to have the vaccinations by. Your doctor’s office may have to special order certain vaccinations or they might refer you to a clinic specifically geared toward travel to obtain the proper immunizations.

Upon going to the my university’s travel clinic, they informed me that I had the majority of the vaccinations I needed which included Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Polio Booster, and Meningococcal Meningitis (which most colleges require to enroll). Seasonal flu vaccinations are suggested and a Rabies vaccination is recommended if you will be in the Tanzania for an extended period of time, but I opted out of these two as per my professor’s recommendation. I did, however, still need Typhoid and Yellow Fever vaccinations as the Yellow Fever immunization is required for entrance into most sub-Saharan African countries, including Tanzania. 

Having had friends who received these vaccinations recently for study abroad trips, I knew ahead of time that they were going to hurt and I was going to be sore. The nurse did one shot in each arm. When she said to me “There, that wasn’t so bad,” I smiled politely at her and said I was fine even though I wanted to yell, “How do you think that felt?! OF COURSE IT HURT!”

For the next three days both of my arms felt so sore that you would have thought I had been hitting the gym nonstop and bench pressing small children. My roommates got a kick out of having to get things off higher shelves for me because I couldn’t lift my arms up as high as normal. At least someone got a laugh out of it! 

Aside from the Yellow Fever and Typhoid vaccinations, the other major medical preparation you need for Tanzania (and most African countries) is to obtain Malaria medication. Your general physician or a travel clinic physician can write you a prescription for this but again, make sure you obtain this well in advance of your departure. There are different types of Malaria tablets, some of which you take daily, some only once a week. There are side affects to Malaria medication so be sure to review those with your physician. 

Malarone, which is what most people on my study abroad trip took, is a popular Malaria medication that you take daily. Mefloquine (also called Larium), which is what I took, is a once a week pill. It made me nauseous on the days I took it because it is a strong dose of medicine, however I appreciated not having to remember to take it every day. Trust me; this is not medication that you want to forget because your Malaria exposure is high in Tanzania.  Mosquitoes are carriers so be sure to pack strong bug spray (more on this in future posts). You can also contract Malaria by drinking the water which is why you should only drink bottled water! 

Follow these links to the CDC website to learn more about vaccinations and risks associated with Yellow Fever, Typhoid, and Malaria.

Yellow Fever Endemic zones in Africa 2009, Credit: CDC

Malaria Endemic Countries in Eastern Hemisphere, Credit: CDC

 

Mefloquine Malaria Medication