Malaria Tablets

Dizzy Lass

I need to get malaria tablets for my trip this weekend
The doctor gave me a prescription for two types as she didnt know the price off hand for each type & so this way i can get the cheaper one.
One prescription is for doxycydine & the other is malarone.

Can anyone who got either tell me what they paid ?

Thanks

Ginger

Well i used both one one of my trips..

I found Malarone rougher than doxycydine but that was because I was silly. Its meant to be taken with food and i didnt. Make sure you follow the instructions on them :P

Right:

Paid AUD$ 45 for a course of 60 doxycydine (enough for our trip through most of southern africa) and 60E for a course of 12 Malarone. Not a fair comparison i know but it was a case of where we bought them. I prefered the doxycydine but it can make you sensitive to the sun.

Malarone is supposed to have the least side effects but make sure to take it with food or milk (and not beer!!!)

empirix

Don't use any, just cover up with long sleeves and trousers?(light clothing) and use some DEET, your body will thank you for it

Culchie

empirix wrote:

Don't use any, just cover up with long sleeves and trousers?(light clothing) and use some DEET, your body will thank you for it

I'm sorry now, but if you should take malaria tablets because you are visiting a malaria prone region, that is absolutely stupid advice.

Malaria isn't the summer cold you know, it attacks your nervous system and can easily kill you ...as in DEAD, as I believe some poor Irish family found out last week when their son contracted Malaria in Burma .... and he was taking tablets !!

Ginger

Well unless you shower in the stuff.. and even then. Deet is toxic to humans as well. We used 100% deet and still got bitten because them damm bugs will find the place you havent got it one you.. top of ears, earlobes, parts of your scalp.

While no anti-malarial medicene prevents it, it does slow down the symptons (a bad thing??)

Stick to the course.

Our guides didnt use them but then they had grown up with it, so they have a higher natural immunity to it rather than us foreigners who have never been bitten.

Where abouts are you going OP??

empirix

I travelled all over SE Asia for 6 months and didn't take any and most of the people i met were not taking them but each to their own

eldon

I would recommend against taking any anti-malarials.

Anti-malarials are not 100% effective. You can still contract malaria even if you have been taking your course properly. I know a person who contracted malaria and when they went to the hospital with their ailments they didn't receive great attention. Because they were already on anti-malarials the Doctors assumed it must be something other than malaria they were presenting with and wasted a significant amount of time trying to ascertain what was wrong with the person before they resigned themselves to it being malaria. The treatment for treating malaria is to give a course of anti-malarial medication equivalent to three times the dose that you would take if just following normal procedure.

The danger in taking anti-malarials and subsequently contracting malaria is that your body can build up a tolerance to the anti-malarials in its system which makes taking the course of anti-malarials to address malaria if contracted far less effective.

I would recommend covering up and using deet especially at dusk and at dawn. I would take anti-malarials with me and if I felt that I had contracted it I would munch away on them.

hope this helps

LikeOhMyGawd!

As reported in the Belfast Telegraph, 29 May 2006
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=692948

Malaria victim's funeral
By Claire Regan

An Ulster student killed by malaria on a gap-year style trip to Asia will today be buried in Londonderry.

Christopher Gallagher (23), who died in Thailand after picking up a lethal strain of the disease, is to be buried this morning at the City Cemetery.

The young man's parents, Mary and Martin, are expected to be joined by hundreds of mourners as the his remains are lifted from the family home on Liscloon Drive at 9.20am, before being taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Steelstown for Requiem Mass at 10am.

Christopher is thought to have contracted a deadly strain of the virus while travelling in Burma during an eight month world trip. He may have been bitten by a mosquito while in the jungle.

He had apparently been taking anti-malarial drugs before and during his trip.

He spoke to his parents from a Thai clinic less than 24 hours before his death and they said that by the end of the conversation they realised they would never see him alive again.

Speaking last week, his father said Christopher was fulfilling his dreams when he left home to travel.

"I remember he wanted to go away before university but I managed to persuade him not to. But he was so determined, it was his dream, he loved other cultures and new people," he said.

"One of the last things he said to me was that he didn't regret a moment of his travels."

YeAh!

eldon wrote:

I would recommend against taking any anti-malarials.

Anti-malarials are not 100% effective. You can still contract malaria even if you have been taking your course properly. I know a person who contracted malaria and when they went to the hospital with their ailments they didn't receive great attention. Because they were already on anti-malarials the Doctors assumed it must be something other than malaria they were presenting with and wasted a significant amount of time trying to ascertain what was wrong with the person before they resigned themselves to it being malaria. The treatment for treating malaria is to give a course of anti-malarial medication equivalent to three times the dose that you would take if just following normal procedure.

The danger in taking anti-malarials and subsequently contracting malaria is that your body can build up a tolerance to the anti-malarials in its system which makes taking the course of anti-malarials to address malaria if contracted far less effective.

I would recommend covering up and using deet especially at dusk and at dawn. I would take anti-malarials with me and if I felt that I had contracted it I would munch away on them.

hope this helps

Cover yourself up yes, but still I would not recommend to anyone from using anti-malarials. They are not 100% effective against all strains of the the virus of course but they are still going to help your immune system fight the virus.

What about taking Artimisia? Isn't that supposed to be the most effect anti-malarial at the moment?

Roen

I contracted it twice in Africa, mercifully enough it was not as severe as it could have been. I've seen some people totally poleaxed by it. An American couple who were travelling around the same region as I was both died from it.
I'm not sure about Doxy or Malarone but don't you have to start taking anti-malarials two weeks before your trip? If you're heading off this weekend it would seem to be a little late to start worrying now.
A one year supply of Larium cos me about €140, but that was a couple of years ago. I didn't take it btw, and even though I got malaria twice I still wouldn't take it.

YeAh!

Roen wrote:

A one year supply of Larium cos me about €140, but that was a couple of years ago. I didn't take it btw, and even though I got malaria twice I still wouldn't take it.

Yah, i'd only take the Larium if I was seriously stuck i'd say. It has serious side-effects on humans inducing psychotic states. That and mefloquine I think.

callmescratch

Take the malaria pills.
Don't listen to any idiot who says not to.

I took malarone last year. Very handy, as you only take them for i think a week after leaving malaria zones. No side effects for me, and the most people get is a bit of nausea.

They are expensive, but my sister just got 2 months supply for €75 because she got them on the drug refund scheme thing. i don't think the chemist is supposed to do that, or at least it should have been €150, as it's a two month scrip.

Last year i paid about €90 for only a weeks supply of malarone (14 day course i think)

i am buying 90 By-Mycin today for €82


Also, as YeAh! said, the pills are not 100% effective, but they are a treatment for malaria as well as being a preventative drug

empirix

callmescratch wrote:

Take the malaria pills.
Don't listen to any idiot who says not to.

I took malarone last year. Very handy, as you only take them for i think a week after leaving malaria zones. No side effects for me, and the most people get is a bit of nausea.

They are expensive, but my sister just got 2 months supply for €75 because she got them on the drug refund scheme thing. i don't think the chemist is supposed to do that, or at least it should have been €150, as it's a two month scrip.

Last year i paid about €90 for only a weeks supply of malarone (14 day course i think)

i am buying 90 By-Mycin today for €82


Also, as YeAh! said, the pills are not 100% effective, but they are a treatment for malaria as well as being a preventative drug

Idiot! Obviously a man that lives by the rules - don't believe the hype!

dermot_sheehan

The OP is looking for comparisons in price, not for medical advice from people neither qualified nor licenced to give medical advice.

Do what your doctor says and shop around.

callmescratch

As gabhain7 said, the OP was looking for price comparisons. Not only did empirix ignore the original post, but advised the OP not to fill a medical prescription because "most people" he met on holidays were not taking malaria pills, and, apparently, because of some "hype"


Anyway, if you find a chemist that will put them onto the drug refund scheme you'll get them at a good price no matter how many you need

Happy Travels


malaria hype (pdf)

sportswear

there is a huge amount of rubbish written about the drugs and the disease in this thread

abakan

sportswear wrote:

there is a huge amount of rubbish written about the drugs and the disease in this thread

well please expand on your vast knowledge of diseases and drugs - otherwise a one line reply's that tells us nothing is pointless