Trip & personal pharmacy

Even if the cities and the villages are well provided in pharmacies, it is very advised to be equipped with a minimum of drugs. Your house doctor can easily help you with the development of an auxiliary pharmacy. Especially if you project to make some treks, a personal pharmacy becomes essential. 

The importance and the composition of your travel pharmacy must be adapted to the destination, the duration and the type of voyage as to the number of people who accompany you.

 

Here an example of pharmacy of first aid :

 

Disease prevention against malaria:

• Insect repellent to be applied to the skin
• Insecticide for the textiles and the room
• Anti-malaria treatment.

Ask obligatorily your house doctor and a specialized centre, any treatment of this kind is subjected to prescription.

 

The treatment is really suggested only in case of incursion in Amazonia, check well the high- risk zones in the country where you wish to stay.. With respect to Peru, the high risk zones are the Amazonian basin, in the east of the Andes Cordillera, below 1800m of altitude.

 

Allergic reactions
Always carry with you one or two antihistaminic drugs prescribed by your doctor. It can be very useful in the case of a spider or insect bite for example.

 

Digestive system

Medicines against the liquid diarrhoeas without fever. It is common to have digestive disorders at the moment of a travel, it is consequently necessary to take ones precautions while being provided with an anti-diarrhoeal and an intestinal cleaning medicine, taken jointly.

• Consult your doctor.
• Specific antibiotic in the event of possible serious cases
• At the time of diarrhoeas with high fever and blood stained dejections, antibiotic alone and medical consultation advised after 48 hours. In the young children and the old people, solution of replacement of the liquids advised. In the adults, contributions of liquid and salt are normally enough.
• Antispasmodic, in case of pains of stomach
• Laxatives (sometimes altitude has perverse purposes...).

Nauseas, vomiting, travel sickness
One often has to take several means of transport. It is good to have within reach an anti-vomiting of Primperan type, perhaps a specific solution to avoid certain nuisances.
Consult your doctor for further information.

Fevers and pains

• Aspirin (until 3g maximum per day)
• Paracetamol (until 3g maximum per day)
• Injectable Analgesic (2 ampoules of 60 intramuscular Mg). It is recommended to be formed in first aid before using this kind of medicine
• Local anti-inflammatory medicine, against the muscular pains.

Chills

• Nasal drops
• Sore throat
• Cough syrop

Protection of the skin

• Sun lotion index of protection 15/20, check that you do not have allergic reactions before the travel.
  A good choice is judicious. The packing of each sun lotion indicates the index of protection, which prolongs the tolerance of your skin with regard to the sun. The choice of the product depends on your type of skin, of the intensity of the rays, the exposure time and the envisaged activity.
• Insect bites.

Protection of the eyes

• Filter sunglasses. It is judicious to invest in good sunglasses for an effective protection of your eyes and to avoid burns of the retina due to a too strong exposure to an intense luminosity, as that which we find in High Altitude.
• Ocular drops.

Material of bandage and disinfection

• Iodized alcohol as disinfectant
• Hydrogen peroxide, effective for the small haemorrhages
• Cotton
• Sterile gauze
• Bandages of several sizes
• Adhesive plaster
• Normal bands
• Elastic bands Élastoplast kind (very good in case of dislocation)
• Plaster bandage (optional)
• Double skins against the blisters if you walk a lot.

Essential instruments

• An electronic thermometer, more precise and solid that others. Avoid the thermometer with mercury, too weak and dangerous if it breaks
• Small scissors to cut bands and others
• Two disposable syringes, to inject or to make inject, for example somewhere where there would not be syringes
• Pincers
• An immersion heater to boil or filter water
• Pills to disinfect water, Micropur kind or Hydrochloronazone.

Mountain sickness
A diuretic treatment like Diamox prevents against the altitude sickness, possibly, but a doctor should be consulted on this subject.

 

Storage and precautions for use

• Your pharmacy must be stored in a fresh place apart from the direct rays of the sun
• It is important that it remains out of the reach of the children
• Observe the expiry date indicated on each packing and read carefully the indications.

You have to know that a particular prudence at the time of taking medicines is to be observed if you are pregnant.

 

IMPORTANT : The advices of Puka Nina Peru cannot replace the judgment of your doctor, in particular in case of high- risk people. You must therefore ask your doctor before any travel.