Pepto Bismal and/or Travelan?

Might want to read through this post.

Your Experience with Food Poisoning (or not!) Morocco

Every one of our MDs have recommended that we take Pepto- Bismal before traveling to third world. countries.

I suggest talking to a medical professional, specifically one that specializes in travel. Aside from providing appropriate advice on treatments, they may also recommend preventative vaccines https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/morocco

Go to Adventures with Sarah website (.net) and search the blog for "The Travelers Diarrhea Companion" by a pharmacist. She recommends Pepto Bismol.

Hello, kcglobal, we are both carefully preparing for Morocco!
I had posted the query above and that's where I found out about PeptoBismal. I am so grateful to this Forum. I've never used it before, so am going to try it at home first to make sure I don't have any weird reactions. The travel nurse through my health care provider hadn't heard of it as a prophylactic but it's certainly online from my research. Many posters appear to take it just ahead of the trip and then throughout?
She did prescribe antibiotics, which I am very happy to have (only if needed, of course)- she described the scenarios- blood in stools, etc- if things get really dire. That might be one more thing to add to your kit of supplies!

We took Travelan with us on our recent trip to India and Nepal. It is very pricey. We took it faithfully before every meal for about a week. We stopped taking it after that as no one in our group was suffering from any digestive issues nor did we for the following two weeks after. We did carry Cipro with us just in case as we normally do. The main thing is to keep the local water out of your mouth. Drink only bottled water, brush your teeth with bottled water and don’t get the water in your mouth when showering. This tactic has served us well in our travels around the world. Also be careful of salads and fresh cut vegetables as they might have been washed in the local water.

Make sure you take enough.

While I can't speak for Morocco, I know that Pepto Bismol is not sold in the EU. The only place I have found it in Europe is in the UK and it was behind the pharmacist's counter.

Yup, no Pepto Bismal in the EU and I dont think you will find it outside of the EU in Europe. TUMS are also rare as rocking horse poo. I rely on both so the Pepto comes from a secret German source and the TUMS I get from Amazon.de for like a euro a chew. I think this is why Europeans dont smile as much as Americans.

Great article on the topic: https://www.globalrescue.com/common/blog/detail/ban-over-the-counter-drugs-medication-international-travel/

I'll mention again Dukoral, even though I believe from previous posts that it isn't available in the US.

Dukoral is an oral vaccine for traveller's diarrhea that is heavily marketed to Canadians going south in the winter. We took it prior to a China tour and were the only people who didn't get sick. We'll be taking it it again before our February departure to Southeast Asia.

It doesn't require a prescription so is easily purchased at pharmacies if in Canada.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a lot of information on travel to Morocco.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/morocco

They also publish the "Yellow Book."
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/yellowbook-home

CDC Yellow Book: Health Information for International Travel is a resource for healthcare professionals providing care to international travelers. It compiles the US government’s most current travel health guidelines, including pretravel vaccine recommendations, destination-specific health advice, and easy-to-reference maps, tables, and charts.

Mr E.....while Tums (brand) isn't sold in the EU, its main ingredient, calcium carbonate, is.

In Germany, you can buy a box of 30 tablets for under 5 Euros. (Rossman carries it.) I don't know what is available in Hungary.

According to Google Translate, Calcium Carbonate is Kalcium-Karbonat in Hungarian.

When we travel to a location that we might be concerned we take Dukoral some weeks before travel and Pepto with us.

Thank you Frank II, I've been buying the Tums from Amazon.de. About $30 for 72 tabs. And being Hungary, takes two weeks for delivery. I will go to Rossmann but we joke here that you cant even get a band-aid here without first talking to a pharmacist.

Thanks to Mr. E, (above)
It's thanks to your email that we learned about Global Rescue. Looks like a great organization. We've decided that the rescue service that's included with World Nomads travel insurance is enough to pay for on this particular trip, but we will keep Global Rescue in mind if we travel anywhere more dicey than Morocco and will refer it to others as well.
Love this forum and everything I learn from those here!
Thanks again

Maybe I should have signed up with them for my trip this week? Naaa, that would be info overload. Then again.

LOL... I agree there's a lot to digest before leaving for Morocco. We're used to traveling within North America or Europe where water, food, electricity, cell service, even rental cars is a simple process. ... so this is a new adventure for us. Another new thing is we decided for the very first time to get travel insurance mostly focusing on medical issues and while World Nomads is not the cheapest --it's still very reasonable--it appears to have a stellar reputation so we went with them. You can register with them at anytime.
Safe travels!

Mr É, I found a Bayer antacid product called Rennie in Czech Republic, but yes I had to ask a pharmacist for it. Not as tasty or colorful as Tums, but the same stuff. I had to look up the Czech word for heartburn to get it as my miming it was not enough. She may have thought I had a broken heart.

Rennies are indeed the go-to antacid here. I have a number of boxes. Dirt cheap too. Very efficient. The colour does what in the other product?

Just a tad bit of information which totally strays from the OP's original topic: Sudafed is now obtained by prescription only in France according to a pharmacist when I attempted to buy it in Paris a few days ago for my cold. I am interested in the Steripen and will look into it as a valid method to kill what it claims to.

You need a prescription here too. For cortisone creme too. I stocked up on both when I was Australia early last year.

Regarding the Steripen....I bought one for a friend of mine a few years who was going to Ghana for six months to work at a health station. There, you can't drink the water.

She told me she would buy bottled water but people would steal it. So I bought her a Steri-Pen. She returned back to the US saying she never got sick drinking the water. She loved the Steri-pen.

I have been to Oaxacan villages six times with cleft lip/palate surgical teams, all of whose members were expected to take Pepto Bismal - 2 tablets every 6 to 8 hrs - for 2 days prior to leaving the U.S.; every day while in Mexico; and for 2 to 3 days after getting home. Our U of Chicago Medical Center chief directed us NOT to take any prophylactic antibiotics: “DON’T mess up your normal GI flora with antibiotics!” We all stayed free on any gastric problems EXCEPT for one team member who didn’t like the color of his tongue after a few days of the pink tablets.

He stopped the Pepto and within 8 hours or so was exploding from both ends and placed on bed rest with an IV for fluid replacement. We were all eating and drinking the same food so he was our lab rat who gave us much confidence that Pepto Bismal tablets really do… something…to keep the parasitic protazoa bugs from latching onto your gut and making you ill.

I stupidly packed my Pepto in my checked luggage for one long return trip home. Without the scheduled tabs of Pepto my gut went moderately haywire. The various airport terminal restrooms were my happy place. Live and learn.
P.S. For our first trip to Morocco our regimen of vaccinations included smallpox booster, cholera, typhoid and tetanus.
More currently I would strongly consider vaccination or boosters for Hepatitis A, and B, cholera and typhoid . Interestingly, rabies is considered endemic among Morocco’s dog population.

Thanks, Tom, for the details. I've copied your response to my family. Btw, my son, over 20 years ago, also went with a team of surgeons for cleft lip/palate surgeries to Tomsk, Russia as the high school student representative to act as an orderly after the surgeries--great work--thank you! It greatly affected him.