Contacted my surgery and they said I needed a Typhoid booster (fine) and recommended Hepatitis B (I am up to date with tetanus). I was surprised at Hep B as I hadn't seen it mentioned on here.... and it is £50!!! I wouldn't mind having Hep B anyway but anyone else been recommended it? And/or the cheapest place to buy it.

Our surgery gave us Hep B for free, but I do think it depends on your doctors surgery. We have other friends who have been charged for vaccinations but we never get charged.

there seems to be many different brand names for doxycycline, my parents have got a cheapy , they go in 2 weeks and are thinking of taking these.

Do any of the brand names work? as long as they are 100 ml 's?

Hi Nicola

Just looked at the ones we got,it says Vibrox and then Doxycycline in brackets underneath. 7 of us got them and we got three different tablets (size,brand etc) so they must all be the same. Ours cost £9.50 for 7 weeks, but you needed a private presription (no charge) from your doctor. I was fine taking them until the 2 week when we got home and then they made me vomit every time I took them (must have been a build up) only got a few bites,so hoping it covered me.

Also our practice does not charge for vaccinations.

Debi

thanks deb, thats put my mind at rest now, where did you get the vibrox brand from?

thanks

nicola

Hi Nicola
I've sent you a pm it was our local chemist.
Debi

Hi Deb, thanks again, my parents have picked them up today because they were in stock.

I went to see my nurse today, and even though her website said that there is SOME resistance to chloroquine, they are still recommending P&C.

Also, she did stress that if anyone using Doxy is on the contraceptive pill, Doxy will stop it from working as it is a anti-biotic.

this i just read in candolim local paper. i never used to take the tablets but will now. this is in herald paper

deleted due to copyright- you can provide a link to the article though
Fiona ht mod

Just popped to my local chemist and asked about doxycyline and he has them at 15p each, so for 3 weeks it will cost a grand total of £15.30 for the 2 of us I am one who never normally bothers but you can`t afford not too at that price particularly with the increased risk of late.

my mother got 50 doxy tablets for just over 6pounds.

But on the pack it says stay out of the sun, this is why i didnt take them, because i love the sun.

My preferred choice would be malarone, but they are very expensive. Sorry to go over the same questions but how long do you take the malarone tablets for.
The Doxycyline tablets seem to have a lot of side effects so think I might be as well sticking with the usual ones that we take every day, but they dont make you feel that great either. We tend to take the tablets at bedtime, but reading on the NHS website it recommends taking them with food, so we will start taking them with our evening meal and see if thats any better.

Seven of us took them (3 kids) and none of us got sunburn,just use suncream protection as you normally do and you should be ok

Gemma - Ive been told you take Malarone 2 days before you go, for the duration of the holiday and for a week when you get back.

I asked my GP for doxy as I know the Malarone and plus its an antibiotic but he said no ... a) its not the recommended medication and 2ndly he believes that although its an antibiotic for many (including myself) who are on the pill the antibiotic will interfere with how effective it is making lots of Goa babies (maybe not a bad thing lol), but more importantly an antibiotic kills good as well as bad bacteria so his thoughts are I would not have as much good bacteria in my tummy if I was to pick up a bug or eat something bad ... I know Malarone is expensive, but working on the above rationale and knowing I would rather not get Malaria or a bad stomach I will be taking Malarone and a daily good bacteria supplement and hoping I am covered

Sounds like very good advise Solobrummy. I did read all the side effects of Doxy ie. contraceptive pill stuff, sunburning and a few others, but its good to have others opinions on it, thanks.
I am going to my own doctor at the end of the week so I am going to ask about malarone/doxy etc and get her opinion as well.
Thanks for your reply

I think if you are on the pill it is not an option,however regarding the stomach issues our doctor told us the opposite saying it protects you from stomach issues whilst there (which I think it did) however it made me really sick, about the 2nd week after we got home and it gave my OH and my friend bad heartburn (around the same time) so once again it is about what suits the individual. A friend of mine went to South Africa and took Malarone and said he was really ill,so much so that he stopped taking it whilst there I would have carried on (even if ill) after paying that much

As I said the other day I went to see my nurse and even though her website said that there is SOME resistance to chloroquine, they are still recommending P&C... so that's what I have decided to go with - she also said she wouldn't recommend Doxy unless there were no other options available. She also told me that I could only get Doxy on private prescription.

Most doctors are still recommending P&C. There have been a few cases of malaria caused by the strain that P&C does not protect you from of the last year.

We were both perfectly fine on malarone. I took mine day before leaving UK but O.H. had to get extra malarone and take them a week BEFORE we travelled. This was only because he has to take warfarin which thins the blood. Malarone MAY affect this and they wanted to do a blood test before we went to check this - otherwise he'd need a blood test while we were out there. Luckily it was ok so he didn't need to have one in Goa. We took them with our evening meal and noticed no symptoms whatsoever. Continued with them a week when we got back. His blood level had gone up slightly when he had got back to UK but just put on different strengths of warfarin.