Malaria Meds

redleader

I'm leaving for India for the first time in a couple of days. I've got prescription Malaria Meds, Diarrhea Meds, and High Altitude Meds. They all came in those typical cylindrical clear brownish containers with the white safety caps. They have the prescription labels on them and i also the have prescription refill sheets/instructions. Should this be a problem with customs? Has anyone ever had problems bringing prescription meds into/out of India?

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livin-in-india

no problem with customs. they won't check your bags anyway. they don't have the personnel to bother the foreigners.

i'd be cautious about taking malaria meds. some of them can create psychotic episodes. and malaria isn't much of a threat. and when it is, the papers cover it, and you can easily avoid it.

it is zero threat at high altitudes, so if you are himalaya bound, it is even less needed. i've spent years all around india without malaria meds and my health is better for it. i've seen travelers freak out from them. and the effects last well past the day they stopped them.

india is a land of prescriptionless acqusition of most any medicine. don't worry about anything.

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wonderwomanusa

Nobody looked at my medications, either going into India or returning to the USA -- and by the time I returned (after three months), I'd combined most of them into one or two Rx bottles, except for the doxycycline I was using for anti-malaria, which I left on the little cards.

guerik

And I had a couple of zip-lock bags full of loose pills (vitamins, the jar was too bulky) and they didn't care at all.
Australian customs had a good look at them, though.

sticky

I bet they were vitamins gueric

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guerik

They were vitamins, and I'm just high on life

sticky

thats what they all say

shanthi

Out of 9 flights into India, coming into Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore I have had my bags opened on the way out of the Airport four times. So they DO check you bags sometimes. Prescription meds that are clearly labelled are of course acceptable - NO problem.

Lariam is the only anti-malarial medication that I know of which can cause depression, anxiety, erratic behaviour and psychotic episodes, within days sometimes ofbegining the course and indeed has an extremley bad name. Be very careful that it isn't Lariam with another name now as well. You can check out the Brand name of any drug by entering it into your search engine - among the results, if the brand name has been changed, you will see evidence of this from the threads in the results.

(Pharmaceutical companies alter the names of drugs when there is an uproar about them - it's the same as what they did with Nutrasweet, which has been blamed for the altering of brain patterns and tumours - they now call it Aspertame and it's extremley dangerous - put it into your search engine too and you'll see what I mean!).

Doxycycline isn't a bad one at all and has many different brand names, and is ALSO available in India at a much lower cost than we can usually buy in our home countries.

Sama

I take lots of vitamins and supplements and also had 4 prescriptions with me in bottles. of course I only have my one trip to India to judge by, but no one questioned me on any of it.

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My India, 2005-2008

GoanCanuck

Besides Malaria protection, doxycycline clears pimples and acne super fast. Makes your skin smooth as marble.

cyberhippie

You've been checked 4 times Shanti, you must be a right dodgy looking character
Never been checked yet,of course I'll probably get a tug the next time for opening my big trap!

Oh and Anti Malarials is personal decision but rest assured there is no way of avoiding it just because the papers report it.
Look at it this way it's just one bite, that's all that is needed, there's too much of this "you can avoid Malaria" on travel forums, the truth is with the best of intentions you can't avoid getting bitten sometimes and you never know where Malaria will rear it's ugly head, there is no rhyme or reason to Malaria a infected mossie gets in someones luggage take a bus for two hundred Kms bites you and you're F#@*&d.

Don't avoid anti malarials based on a phalacy; that you'll see malaria coming or you can avoid getting bitten 100%
Avoiding bites is a good defence sure but in actuall fact isn't as safe a bet as the anti malarials!!

pezworld

Excellent post, cyberhippie. Having seen my father nearly die of malaria (and he's not sure where he got it -- could have been India or Indonesia, but it was long after he traveled), I can't understand why anyone would take the advice of random people on the Internet and skip antimalarial just because the advice giver never got it!

redleader

Thanks for the confirmation...I was worried about taking the anti-malarial pills I got because of all the talk about side effects. I think mine is doxycycline. My travel doc told me that the only side effect is that it makes you more prone to sunburn.

Sama

I just got back from Chennai, and was totally bit up, as were the rest of my yoga pals. DEET did not help whatsoever and I got bit through my clothes. I just finished my malarone yesterday, and had no side effects whatsoever. The other students who did not take any malaria meds and who used DEET but were bit up anyway, were rather concerned about getting malaria. Granted, no malaria med will stop you from getting malaria, but peace of mind is a good thing....

before I left, I went back and forth between doxy and malarone. On the advice of one of my doctors who is from Bangalore (and goes back every year and takes malaria meds), she told me in her 20 years of practice she has never seen a side effect from malaria meds (not that it does not happen, but in her professional experience in 20 years, and from everyone she knows in India who takes meds, she has never seen any side effects.)

I chose not to take doxy. because #1, you have to take it for a month after your return and I did not want to be on a 2 month regimen of antibiotics, and #2, besides the bad stuff, it also kills the "good germs".

it all comes down to personal choice.

pezworld

I've taken Lariam twice, and no side effects. But that's me. My friends reported wild dreams.