Saturday, July 19, 2014

What to bring to Nepal

2 weeks ago, I finally managed to find a doctor to provide me with a prescription (50 Euros) in order to receive the 2 last recommended immunizations for my voluntary work.

July 4th, I received dose 1 of 3 for the Rabies Vaccination and dose 1 of 2 of the Japanese Encephalitis. I received the second Rabies shot this week and the 2 final shots are scheduled for the end of the month. Sides effects are not too crazy. Light fever and a little tenderness in my shoulder... The most painful remains the bill, 350 Euros!

Now that the pre-departure medical aspect of things is almost under control, I started seriously thinking at what I need to bring and drafted a list.

As I sat in front of my computer to write, the battery went down and I had to connect my power cord. This made me realized that I needed to research a little in order to find out if I needed to by plug adaptors and/or power inverters.


Pretty useful before travelling if, like me, you don't know the type of plug and/or voltage fund where travelling to. From what I fund on this site, I expect to find in both Nepal and India the standard European equipment. 

First item of the list ticked!


My First Aid Kit came next to my mind as I will be working in a remote area. Previous field work and outdoors experiences have provided me with a general idea of what I might need. However, Nepal's environments remain a mystery for me and therefore, I will simply try using common sense. 

Difficulty number one at this stage is finding gluten free medications and believe me, this is a time consuming task!


The same situation repeats itself every single time a doctor prescribes me any sort of medication; I inform them that I am celiac and consequently, can only be prescribe with gluten free tablets. What follows is pretty hilarious, we read together both the active and inactive ingredients and then, the doctor generally looks at me and ask: what do you think? Like, I am suppose to know all that gibberish!  

But today, after once more too many hours spent in front of my computer, I fund something really nice! 
Here you will find a gluten free medications list by therapeutic category and an alphabetical list. 

Congressman Tim Ryan, Ohio (D) and Congresswoman Nita Lowrey, New York (D) are co-sponsoring a bill, Gluten in Medication Identification Act (HR 4972) in May.  This bill will require labeling which will make it easier to identify gluten in pharmaceutical products.  
The list was last updated in December 2014.