Wow! Your vacation is getting near! You’ve worked at saving
money on travel so you have a little extra to really enjoy your trip. Of
course, as a savvy traveler you’ve not only been looking forward to this trip
but planning like mad as well. Travel reservations - Check! Outfits for dining,
lounging, swimming, etc - Check! Passport and travel documents - Check! Lots of
those little travel sized toiletries and so forth - Check, check, check! Sports
gear - Check! That novel you’ve been meaning to get to - Check!
In all the excitement of packing, planning what you’ll do,
and so forth, don’t forget to check whether you have enough medication to get
you through your trip. And we’re not just talking about your prescription
medication either.
Be sure that you have either enough of your over the counter
medications to see you through your journey or that there’s a source to get
more of them near where you’ve set up your home exchange or other
accommodations. Another great idea is to
find out the names of your over the counter medications in other countries. For
example, in the UK a common pain reliever is known as Paracetamol. But in the
US it’s known by the brand name Tylenol or the generic name acetaminophen. To
help find out more about this, here are a link
and an app for your smartphone which might help you
look up international drug names.
With regard to you prescription medications, there are a
couple of things you can do to make sure you have enough medication on hand.
The first and easiest is to see if you can get a prescription written for
enough medication to see you through. This will involve checking with your
physician to request the prescription and with your insurance to make sure
they’ll permit it to be filled. Sometimes insurances, especially in the US will
have requirements that prescriptions for more than a 30 day supply be ordered
from an online or mail order pharmacy. If that’s the case, you’ll need to be
sure to plan to get the order in well ahead of your departure date.
If you’re not planning an extended stay, see if you can get
your medications refilled early. In some cases you can get a refill some 7 to
10 days before the current prescription is exhausted. The trick here is to
check with your pharmacy first. Each one can have different rules about refill
schedules. Again, a bit of planning ahead can really save a lot of scrambling
at the last minute.
So whether you’re looking to do a holiday home exchange to
get away from it all in sunny Antigua or on the slopes in Sun Valley make sure that your trip stays happy and
healthy by checking on those other essentials.
Thank you to the MA Scott writing team for this blog post.
vacationing couple image courtesy of womenontheirway.com paracetamol image courtesy of healthdoctrine.com pharmacist image courtesy of money.cnn.com
0 comments :
Post a Comment
We would welcome your comments and ideas