How to prevent gut problems in a foreign country?

[chris]

Last year I visited a foreign country on holiday for over a week and started with diarrhea within a day of getting there. I was sick a couple of times mid week but every stool I passed was liquid. I took anti diarrhea tablets which stopped it but made me feel bloated and "off". I could only guess what caused the problems but I have a holiday booked in a month or so and was wondering if anyone had any ideas how I could prevent it happening again in the next month before holiday?

I remember reading that aspirin protected the gut from harmful irritants after taking it for a little while, so was wondering if I took it every day for a few weeks before holiday it would work.

Ondansetron which I have a supply of which the only effect I ever noticed was constipation I wondered if it would be worth taking in the run up and during the holiday.

Cyproheptadine which I have recently got supply of and not yet tested I wondered if it would be useful as I've seen people saying it gave them "guts of steel" and prevented response to irritable food.

Any thoughts?

 

[jyb]

If diarrhea is caused by infection then its useful initially, maybe activated charcoal would do a better job of cleaning the gut without affecting too much the transit time. It is meant to absorb poison and can affect bacteria count. If you look at the places selling charcoal, some consumer comments say they use it to reduce gas problems, so it seems to absorb and hold on to everything like a cloth (including the good nutrients).

 

[tara]

I don't know if you can avoid it unless you are very selective about what you eat and drink.
I agree with jyb - take a jar of activated charcoal with you, and use it if you get dodgy symptoms. I would not use it ahead of times - you probably don't want to reduce the numbers of the bacteria you are currently fairly happily living with to make way for foreign bugs that you might not.