Dr. Tara’s Guide to Staying Well While Traveling

Trips to the sunny south are what makes a Canadian winter bearable–at least to a cold-hating, sun-loving person like me. 🙂

As result, we’ve traveled to many different countries under many different circumstances ranging from 5-star resorts to 0-star bunks. In some of these situations, it can be challenging to stay well.

Here’s what I do to stay healthy while I travel, and get back to work full-swing upon my return without an unwanted bodily invasion.

My travel-day ritual:

  • If I feel a little under the weather before I leave I get hooked up to an IV Vitamin C.
  • I buy 2 bottles of water when I get through security, and put an Emergen-C packet in each of them. I drink one while waiting for the plane and one during the flight. (I do this for the trip home, too.)
  • I’m chemically sensitive and find the jet fumes very irritating, so I take CoQ10 and other solvent detoxifiers before and during the flight.
  • If there is lots of coughing and hacking on the flight, I’ll take Echinacea/Goldenseal capsules–2 during the flight, 2 when I get off, and 2 before bed that night. (Some of our patients use oil of oregano instead, which also works great.)

To stay healthy, and avoid GI complaints:

  • I’m 100% strict with water. I only drink bottled water, and even brush my teeth with bottled water.
  • I LOVE eating the local food and street vendors are my favourite. To deal with the risk for picking up a critter I do the following:
    • Take a high potency probiotic before bed every night.
    • Take a high potency digestive enzyme with HCl before eating, and if what I ate seems suspect, take another one after.
  • If I have been somewhere very exotic, upon my return I do a parasite cleanse and hydro colonics to clean the bugs out.
  • If I feel like I am fighting something when I get home, I go back to the IV Vitamin C as soon as humanly possible once I get off the flight.

This combination of prevention and treatment when necessary has worked wonders for me. Safe travels!