Holiday essentials
There’s a lot to think about when planning a holiday. Whether it’s a beach batch, campground, bush hike, or exotic foreign land holiday there are a few essentials that will help make your holiday easy, enjoyable and safe. Your tickets, passport and currency top the list if you are travelling overseas. Clothing appropriate to the area you’re travelling to is important, as are your essential personal effects, which should include some things you may not have thought about.
While nobody wants to dwell on the “what ifs”, your holiday will be more enjoyable if you are well prepared for any possible “what if” scenarios.
For things like DVT protection and jet lag I use homoeopathic arnica, No Jet-lag, Radiance® NattoZyme, Vitamin E and Radiance® Multi Power. For settling into a new sleep routine I reach for Nature’s Way® standardised Valerian. For holiday diarrhoea or food poisoning there are two things that are just indispensable – probiotics for prevention and recovery and activated charcoal for acute infection.
Food Poisoning or Holiday Diarrhoea
Holiday (travellers’) diarrhoea is a condition affecting approximately 50% of travellers. Commonly caused by the different types of virus and bacteria at the destination (i.e. enterotoxin-forming Escherichia coli bacteria), it is characterised by increased frequency of loose bowel movements, often accompanied by abdominal cramps, bloating, urgency, nausea, vomiting, fever and malaise. Unpleasant at the best of times, it can be disastrous if you’re trying to enjoy a once in a life-time holiday experience. These microbes are easily transmitted via food or drinks. Local drinking water is an obvious risk in many places and should, therefore, be completely avoided. Replace it with water from previously unopened bottles for drinking as well as for cleaning teeth and making ice.
Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls
Revolutionary new encapsulation technology has allowed for the development of Nature’s Way® Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls, New Zealand’s first live, colony forming probiotic that is truly 100% stable at room temperature, so no more worrying about refrigeration. Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls contain a full potency, broad spectrum formula with 1 billion live colony forming units (CFU) per enteric coated capsule, including 100 million CFU clinically proven, fast colonising L.reuteri (see page 13 for more product details). These tiny capsules are suitable for all ages and should be taken from one week before travelling through to one week after. Supplementing with Nature’s Way® Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls in this way can strengthen your intestinal flora and may help prevent moderate bacteria exposure causing you to miss the next holiday photo opportunity because you’re in constant need of a toilet. If you do have a diarrhoea causing infection or require antibiotics, then Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls will help rebuild intestinal flora balance quickly, helping you feel better sooner and help prevent complications such as thrush – a condition very common in warm, humid climates and also disastrous if you’re on your honeymoon.
Nature’s Way® Activated Charcoal
Prevention is the best medicine, but sometimes commonsense, good hygiene and healthy intestinal flora are not enough to protect you from the nastier infectious microbes in the food or water supply. Food poisoning and holiday diarrhoea are usually mild and self-limiting, improving without any specific treatment. But there are safe effective things you can do that could make the difference between being sick, maybe for days or weeks, and feeling considerably better the next morning.
One of the best remedies for food poisoning, holiday diarrhoea or toxin ingestion is activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is produced by super heating carbon in a high oxygen environment. This process increases carbon’s adsorptive properties (the attraction and accumulation of gases, liquids, or solutes on its surface) up to 2000 times. This superb adsorptive quality is what makes activated charcoal so useful and why it is now commonly used world wide as the treatment of choice in hospital emergency care for most poisoning and drug overdose patients. Whilst activated charcoal does not bind all substances, it is superbly effective for absorbing intestinal gas, toxins from food or water borne microbe infection, most drugs and many poisonous substances, before they can reach the blood stream.
At the first sign of gastric upset avoid solid food, drink regular sips of water and take 2 Nature’s Way® Activated Charcoal capsules and then 2 hourly if discomfort persists. Begin taking the Nature’s Way® Primadophilus® Reuteri Pearls as soon as you can keep anything down or the diarrhoea lets up. If you are violently sick, or still unwell a few days later seek medical advice.
Travelling made easy with Jason®
As I’m sure you’re aware, due to the heightened terrorism activity worldwide, our Airports have tightened their security measures for carry on baggage on all international flights. All liquids, aerosols and gels must be in containers of 100ml or less and passengers must carry them in a small re-sealable clear plastic bag.
To make this less of an inconvenience Jason® travel sizes are here to help! We all know flying can be tiring and it is nice to have a few home comforts to help freshen up. The Jason® travel range is all about making travelling easy with small neatly packaged bottles which fit into the mandatory clear bag for security screening. There is a fantastic range of 70% organic Jason® travel size products to suit every need.
(Originally Published in Health & Herbal News Magazine Vol. 17 Issue 3)