Malaria Tablets:- Malarone or Doxycycline??

Bruz82

Just woundering on peoples opinion on which one is better. 28 year old male travelling solo through SE Asia for 10 weeks.
I know Malarone is more expensive and taken every day.
I know Doxycycline is taken once a week and ALOT cheaper.

What about the side effects for Doxycycline. Undecided which to choose.
Any advise appreciated

Legs

Hi,

I used malarone for quite a while in Africa (about 4 months) a couple of years back. I think it's less likely to have an impact than doxy; apparently doxy results in side effects (hallucination etc) and leaves your skin more prone to sunburn- not good!

Under the drugs payment scheme, if your doctor prescribes malarone, I'm pretty sure you'll only spend €120 no matter how many tablets you're getting. It's something that I'm not 100% sure on but well worth looking into - your chemist should know.

beagle001

My two cents,
Take neither of the above medication,if you are traveling into the jungle for a trek just spray down and use a mozzie net.
Lived over that side for some time and only met 1 person who had contracted malaria and that was in the very far north of Thailand and they were local.
If your unsure its far cheaper to get them at a hospital in Thailand no hassle,decide then if you want to take the tablets but from people I knew who did take them they only made them feel unwell.
The strain of malaria is not that strong in South East Asia as opposed o Africa which is lethal.
You have a far greater chance of getting Dengue fever in Asia,remember to spray anit mozzi late in the afternoons.
Don`t stress you would be extremley unlucky to get it

Civilian_Target

Anti-malarials are not a particularly light drug to take, particularly doxy, for which you will have to also keep taking for a month after you get home. Do you really need to? Honestly, unless you're going in the wet season, you're unlikely to need it. Just be careful!

tenchi-fan

I took malarone. No problems with it. It's meant to be fine for short-term use (although your gp is the best person to prescribe it!)

It's more expensive but you don't need to worry about it thanks to the Drugs payments scheme.

I wouldn't recommend going without tablets. At the very least if you do get malaria the same tablets are used to treat it as to prevent it!

darrenh

Do you need them for where you are going to in SE Asia. I traveled through there for 3 months and didn't take any. I had them but the 'word on the street' is that you dont really need them. You would have to be really unlucky to get it. As said, Dengue is the one to watch out for!!

Bruz82

This Dengue never came up on my consultation, what do you take for that??. trip is HK overland to Vietnam(up to Sapa) travel south along coast into cambodia up through Laos and back down to Bangkok. For Malarone its 120euro per month so im looking at over 250 (10 weeks). For doxy its 17euro per month. massive difference when everything else is added up, e.g. visas, insurance, vaccs, flights etc
Think Gp said Malarone was only used for 1 month-ish.Also said about sun damage to ur skin using doxy but not about hallucinations?? Is this true
Going 31 August.

tenchi-fan

Malarone is only licenced in the EU for use of up to 28 days.. this does not mean it isn't safe to use for longer periods. It just means enough research wasn't done into the long-term effects of taking malarone.

However, for this reason you might have trouble getting a longer prescription. I got it prescribed for slightly longer than the 28 days though (I think I got 7 week's supply). Also, if you are getting it on the drugs payments scheme you may be able to get it all under one prescription for €125 (I did)

I came home with a few week's supply unused, and because I didn't get any bites while I was away (thanks to fewer mosquitos in winter, fly spray, deet, long clothes and a mosquito net! Prevention is better than cure!) I didn't bother taking it when I got home either.

darrenh

The small print definitely has a hallucinations part.

There is nothing to stop you getting dengue. Just prevention.

If you have the money and feel you need to get the tablets then Malarone is probably the best option. Doxy sounds like a pain in the arse. I have heard before that there are many different strains of Malaria and that all malaria tablets dont cover all strains. In other words you could take tablets and not be protected at all.

breadmonkey

I never understood the general aversion to taking anti-malarials. Yes, the drugs are a bit of an inconvenience but not when compared with the consequences of contracting a really nasty parasite that can affect you for the rest of your life.

Anyway, I've taken Doxy many times and never had any adverse effects. I have quite pale skin so would always have be careful in the sun anyway. Doxy also has the advantage that it's just a broad spectrum antibiotic so will protect you against other illnesses as well. Malarone is obviously way more convenient but a lot more expensive.

darrenh, are you sure hallucinations are a listed side effect for Doxy? They're certainly a side effect of Larium which is generally no longer prescribed.

killbillvol2

breadmonkey wrote: »

I never understood the general aversion to taking anti-malarials. Yes, the drugs are a bit of an inconvenience but not when compared with the consequences of contracting a really nasty parasite that can affect you for the rest of your life.

Anyway, I've taken Doxy many times and never had any adverse effects. I have quite pale skin so would always have be careful in the sun anyway. Doxy also has the advantage that it's just a broad spectrum antibiotic so will protect you against other illnesses as well. Malarone is obviously way more convenient but a lot more expensive.

darrenh, are you sure hallucinations are a listed side effect for Doxy? They're certainly a side effect of Larium which is generally no longer prescribed.

I'm reading it off the blurb from the packet. Never heard of anyone hallucinating though.
They have to list all possible side effects even if it only happened to one person in 1000 during tests.

The main avaersion that people have to doxycyclene is that you have to take it for a month after you leave a malarial area.

dory

Bruz82 wrote: »

This Dengue never came up on my consultation, what do you take for that??.

Nothing as far as I know. It's just a bitch of a fever that if you get it will knock you out for a week or two, then you'll be back to your normal self.

I took Doxy once and never again. Side affects are nuts - crazy dreams, throwing up (unless taken on a very full stomach). Malarone is expensive but never had any problems.

But usually, I'm lazy and just cover up and use spray.

beagle001

Dengue fever usually strikes from the mosquitos during the day,they have a white tail in the middle and it is fairly easy to catch.
Got it 8 years ago and it knocked the stuffing out of me for 3 weeks full on and another couple of weeks later I still was not back to full health.
People get bad acid reflux from doxy,its entirely up to yourself if you feel the need to eliminate the possibility of catching malaria.
Just one word of caution my friend contracted malaria in Africa while he was taking malarone and he said the drug actually surpressed the sympoms for a couple of days and made it worse for him.

drkpower

beagle001 wrote: »

Lived over that side for some time and only met 1 person who had contracted malaria and that was in the very far north of Thailand and they were local.

Sure you'll be grand, so....!

OP, dont listen to this kind of nonsense. Malaria prophylaxis is a bit like insurance - you are insuring against a remote risk, for sure, but the potential adverse affect is substantial. If (after dusk) travelling outside of C. Mai/C. Rai/Bangkok and the southern islands region, malaria prophylaxis is a no-brainer. Doxy is pretty good and is daily, not weekly. I suspect that you are confusing it with Lariam, which is weekly and is usually responsible for the more 'fruity' adverse reactions. Malarone is easily the best though, but you pay for the priviliege. It is accepted on the DRS (drugs repayment scheme) though.

beagle001

drkpower wrote: »

Sure you'll be grand, so....!

OP, dont listen to this kind of nonsense. Malaria prophylaxis is a bit like insurance - you are insuring against a remote risk, for sure, but the potential adverse affect is substantial. If (after dusk) travelling outside of C. Mai/C. Rai/Bangkok and the southern islands region, malaria prophylaxis is a no-brainer. Doxy is pretty good and is daily, not weekly. I suspect that you are confusing it with Lariam, which is weekly and is usually responsible for the more 'fruity' adverse reactions. Malarone is easily the best though, but you pay for the priviliege. It is accepted on the DRS (drugs repayment scheme) though.

What about the millions of people who live in these areas do you think they are popping anti malarial tablets.No
As it is an extremley remote chance of actually getting it whilst
travelling, in my 10yrs around those parts not one backpacker that I met had anything good to say about the anti malaria tablets and none of them actually knew of a fellow "falang" catching it.
Nobody is twisting the op`s arm just giving our insight on the pros and cons of it all.
They will choose for themselves what best suits them,sometimes you just got to go and enjoy the experience.

tenchi-fan

we met a lady walking with a gammy leg.. she dragged her leg along after herself. Then we found out it was because of malaria. we gave her our left-over tablets (that we didn't use because we weren't getting bitten) because with some tables the same tablet cures malaria as prevents it

Bruz82

Thanks for the advise everyone, come Monday morning it will be heads for malorone or harps for doxy !!!!!!!!!:):):)

drkpower

beagle001 wrote: »

What about the millions of people who live in these areas do you think they are popping anti malarial tablets.No
As it is an extremley remote chance of actually getting it whilst
travelling, in my 10yrs around those parts not one backpacker that I met had anything good to say about the anti malaria tablets and none of them actually knew of a fellow "falang" catching it.
Nobody is twisting the op`s arm just giving our insight on the pros and cons of it all.
They will choose for themselves what best suits them,sometimes you just got to go and enjoy the experience.

In your 10 years travelling you never heard of this guy? An Irish backpacker who contracted and died from malaria picked up in ..........eh..........Thailand in 2006????:rolleyes:. And he was taking anti-malarials!!! (it was probably a doxycycline-resistant strain). There are many many other tourists and locals who have died from malaria in Thailand.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/5007404.stm77

But in any case, as i said, malaria tablets, and vacinations are a form of insurance; i dont know anyone whose house has burned down, but i wouldnt advise them to jettison their household fire insurance for that reason.

bubble_wrap

i never took malarials when i travelled SE Asia, i did buy a box ofem just in case but tbh i wouldnt of known if i got malaria until i seen a gp, so what was the point in spending money on the box!! I just used strong deet wherever i went, not really needed in Thailand bar one or two places, covered up with light trousers etc at night time in cambodia but i believe the malarial mosquitos are active during the day, which i found out when i got back I was fine, i met an english bloke who got malaria in paua new guinea, he said he was bricking it but it wasnt actually too bad, it stays in the body though and you are susceptible to further outbreaks(i think!!) dengue fever too is unpleasnet but you actually have to be infected by 3 different strains of it before well your fcuked, so its highly unlikely. Having said that, people have died from an initial malaria infection so....i guess it does happen, i wouldnt really worry about it though unless travelling to a hardcore area of high risk infection etc Deet up and enjoy

bibbly

I simply would not take on board advice from anyone here, who is not qualified in medicine..

Im heading off myself soon, and on the advice from my GP I will be proscribed Malarone, because it has less side affects weirdly the most common being lucid dreaming.

If you are further north in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam I would defo take it, further south by the Islands you may be ok. But for the sake of a few quid why take the risk??

Naid23

I was in thailand in June and was taking Malerone for the prescibed timeframe. At first, all was ok but then I got extremely bad and very painful abdominal pain. It got to the point where I would be curled up in a ball with pain not being able to move- it was absolute agony.
After consulting my Tropical vaccine doctor ( who prescibed the malerone) I stopped taking them.

Within 3 days of stopping the pains went away. Apparently I was a small percentage of people who got this type of reaction from the tablets so there would be no way I would ever take them again regardless of the recommendations. Definately consult a doctor before deciding, the fact that we had direct contact with the doctor who gave us the vacines really helped.

Good luck with everything and hopefully you won't have a bad reaction whichever ones ya pick.

darrenh

bibbly wrote: »

I simply would not take on board advice from anyone here, who is not qualified in medicine..

Im heading off myself soon, and on the advice from my GP I will be proscribed Malarone, because it has less side affects weirdly the most common being lucid dreaming.

If you are further north in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam I would defo take it, further south by the Islands you may be ok. But for the sake of a few quid why take the risk??

This thread is all about who is right and who is wrong now. The fact of the matter is the chance of you getting Malaria without taking medication is a very small percentage. Take the meds if they make you feel comfortable. Chances are you wont need them though.

I have seen that your chances are 1:1000 in SE Asia on a travel health website.

cailinoBAC

Well, I'd have to fall into the camp of not taking anything unless I really felt there was a risk.
This was just my experience, I would make my decision based on my experience, but I do know that I probably wouldn't if I was just going on somebody else's experience.

Last year I was going to South America for 4 and a half months. Got all my jabs and my doctor looked at a malaria map on her computer and decided that I would need to take doxy every day and also for a month afterwards. This was based on the fact that supposedly I never was out of a malarial zone long enough to stop taking them.
So we started taking them when we arrived in Venezuela. My boyfriend stopped after 3 days because he was throwing up. I kept taking them, but on a hike up Roraima my hands swelled up to twice their size. I was really freaked out and there happened to be a German doctor in our group so I asked him, what he thought it could be. When he found out I was on doxy, he said that it was because of the reaction to the sun and that I should stop taking it or it could be chronic. I don't really have time to look this up, but he'd said that in Germany it wasn't prescribed for malaria prevention (only for cure I think).
When we were back in the town, we tried to see if we could get Malarone somewhere, but when we asked, people seemed to think we were saying we had Malaria (why else would you be looking for the medication?). Anyway, so on we went to the Amazon armed with deet and nothing else.
I was a bit worried being there without the medication, especially as our guide said he'd had malaria 3 times...
But after that, we realised we were pretty much following the tourist route for a few months and there was nothing to worry about. I looked at our plan and decided that the only place I was worried about was Colombia. We met another German in Chile who had a quite detailed malaria map and it seemed to imply that doxy wasn't any good at preventing the malaria in many South American regions. Somebody already mentioned about different strains. (again, not a doctor, blah blah blah).
In Bolivia we met two French guys who had been overprescribed Malarone and bought some from them.
In Colombia, before the trek, and Irish guy was asking where he could get Larium. The organisers said there was no malaria where we were going. He actually wanted it as he'd just come from the Amazon, but in any case he didn't get it. We decided we'd still take the Malarone. The trek was fantastic... apart from the terrible diarrhoea we both had. We didn't make the connection at all, thinking it was just the usual traveller's tummy. But while we were finished and on the way home and still suffering, we found out that it was the number one side effect.

So, basically, I think if I found out that an area I was going to was at high risk for malaria, I think I'd reconsider going, as I wouldn't like to take either of those again and I've heard Larium is worse, but I think everyone has to work this out for themselves.
But I don't think Irish doctors sitting in their offices looking at a malaria map on the computer can really tell you for absolute certain that you need to take a tablet for a certain region. I think they're always going to say you need to take it if there's the vaguest possibility, but you don't have to take their word for gospel.

drkpower

cailinoBAC wrote: »

So, basically, I think if I found out that an area I was going to was at high risk for malaria, I think I'd reconsider going, as I wouldn't like to take either of those again and I've heard Larium is worse, but I think everyone has to work this out for themselves.
But I don't think Irish doctors sitting in their offices looking at a malaria map on the computer can really tell you for absolute certain that you need to take a tablet for a certain region. I think they're always going to say you need to take it if there's the vaguest possibility, but you don't have to take their word for gospel.

Most regular GPs dont see enough people going to malaria zones to have a complete and up-to-date knowledge of where is and isnt a malaria zone. Understandably, they tend to err on the side of caution and over-prescribe. Go to a specialist vaccination/travel medicine centre. They deal with people going to malaria zones every day, all day, and can give much more specific tailored advice. And they dont tend to be a whole lot more expensive than a GP.

cailinoBAC

Well, I don't know if they used the same methods, but my boyfriend went to the TMB and got the same prescription for the same time.

breadmonkey

Lock please.

drkpower

cailinoBAC wrote: »

Well, I don't know if they used the same methods, but my boyfriend went to the TMB and got the same prescription for the same time.

Without knowing your itinerary specifically I couldnt tell when you should have been taking malaria prophylaxis. But if TMB advised malaria prophylaxis for those periods, you would have been very unwise to make your own judgment on where was and was not a malaria zone.