Saturday, February 20, 2010

mefloquine hell

So I could only get mefloquine in tel aviv to use as malarial prophylactic and it has major side effects. The other day I took my second dose, as it's a once a week dosage, and almost immediately I was thrown into 24 hours of violent vomiting, nausea, dizziness, headache, and fatigue. When I finally stopped throwing up, I broke out in a rash all over my face and eyes and lips. It looks like I have chicken pox.

I know I should have taken doxycycline which is a better choice but it's not covered in my health basket back in Israel, so I would have paid much more for it. Still knowing that I have such a strong reaction to most medications, I should have been more careful. Hopefully I'll feel better soon and my face will calm down. I'm glad I don't have a mirror here.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hope you are feeling better. that sounds like no fun at all.

Shawna said...

much better. was nothing that benedryl couldn't fix. benedryl in haiti was the major go-to drug for everything. it's so funny.

anyway, I'm not in Haiti anymore, but am instead working on developing a sustainable medical clinic there while I'm in north america. got full funding and am very excited to get it and some programming off the ground before I go back to Israel.