Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Cheap Antimalarials (and no it's not spam!)
I've recently needed to buy a short course of anti-malarials and as ever am struck by the total cost, once tablet margins and the "prescription" service is tallied up.
One option to escape the steep charges is to buy locally on arrival. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, there is now another choice.
By good fortune I came across a great alternative to the UK outlets. Asda of all places has started do low cost, prescription-free anti malarials. What would cost £60+ pretty much anywhere else costs under £30 in Asda.
The nearest Asda pharmacy is in Edmonton Green.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lauren on
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When I took them I had such a bad reaction that I spent a whole week of a two week trip as sick as a dog in bed and hallucinating.
Also check that the one you have will work in the area you are travelling to, might be false economy.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Sorry to hear that.
Actually I was very impressed with the consultation I had to go through at Asda. It was every bit as thorough as one you'd get at a normal travel clinic, perhaps more so. I assume this is because they're very keen that their experiment in low cost travel medicine dispensing doesn't end in tears.
You can check what malarials will work best for the area you're visiting at the NHS website Fit For Travel.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Lauren, were you on Larium?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I used Larium the first time I went to southern Egypt and spent most of the holiday bursting into tears. Never again!
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I was scared off Lariam many years ago. I go with Malarone whenever it's indicated.
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I can't remember, it was about ten years ago, they were the ones recommended by the nurse at my GP.
Hugh - I know Asda have proper consultations and they are probably as thorough as at the GP, I was just saying that you can get really bad side effects, regardless of where you get them from. I wouldn't take them again even if I was going to a high risk area. It was more as a warning against antimalarials in general. I'd rather take my chances.
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Noo, I didn't think you were. I was just adding extra info.
The sort of stories Eddie shares below put me off taking Lariam and I've always stayed well away from it.
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I was on the once-a-week Lariam about 25 years ago in Guyana and definitely felt those mild hallucinations sufficiently alarming that I dumped my supply. Remarkable that a bunch of Paras towards the end of the rebel war in another of my old stomping grounds, Sierra Leone, went crazy from the same Lariam (though, if it was II Para, I wonder how anyone could tell!). 15 years later a few high ranking Brit officers again went gaga from Lariam while serving on the anti-Ebola effort. The MOD, it seems, are convinced that a once-a-week mefloquine/lariam is just what a busy soldier needs to save him messing with a daily dose of something else. My guess is that Kipling's Tommy Atkins was intelligent enough to manage his daily quinine. I found a Proguanil + something else combo from Nomad did fine on my recent month-long trip to Sierra Leone and will probably stay with it when I return there after Easter. But, as Hugh says, it doesn't come at much below £70 for a five-week supply from Nomad.
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