Your Friday Five: Build the Perfect Travel Medicine Kit

Headed out for summer adventures? This week’s Your Friday Five is your guide to creating a simple, powerful medicine travel kit—perfect for anyone on GLP-1s or just prone to nausea, headaches, or tummy trouble. Dr. Matthea shares what she personally packs (and rarely needs—but is always grateful to have!), including Tylenol, Pepcid, Zofran, Imodium, stool softeners, and even the trick of using alcohol pads for sudden nausea relief.

She walks you through how to personalize your kit, when to involve your doctor, and why the smallest zip-top bag might just save your vacation.

✈️ Keep this episode handy before your next trip!

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Please not, no medical advice is being given on this podcast. Please talk to your medical team before making any changes to your health regimen. 

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Transcript

4:13

Welcome back to another your Friday five. So someone wrote in here, can you please do a show on the medicine travel kit? You've mentioned it somewhere. They couldn't remember in a group call or where, but I looked back and this was actually in a previous, your Friday, five. But I haven't heard a comprehensive list of what you put in there. It would be really helpful for summer travel season. I agree. So let's talk about this so you can call this. Your medicine travel kit, I call it a to go kit often, but it's a little nice little Ziploc or little cute tote, whatever you wanna pick. But you have in there everything that you might need in different scenarios. Now there's only so much that you can proof against, but here are a few of the things that I include in it and, you can think about. Is this something that I might want to incorporate? Again, nothing on here is medical advice, but you can, you can sort of think through these things. Alright, so I try to have something for every single scenario that could arise, which is impossible. But the first thing I think about is what if I get a headache? This is very common for me when I travel because if I'm in a conference room and there's tons of drafts, or if we're at the beach and it's windy. I will inevitably get a headache. One of the things I'll have on me is Tylenol. That's my pain medication of choice. Other people might take not only Tylenol, but also an NSAID because you're hitting two different pain receptors. Some people, Aleve, Naproxen, all that kind of stuff. maybe you take an nsaid, maybe you take Tylenol. I actually have, even though they're more expensive, like the little packs of Tylenol where there's two in each one and they're labeled. Because what I find is that when you go on these things, you don't remember what's in what bag, even if you write it on it. I'm always paranoid, I'm gonna go through T TSA and they're gonna be like, what's that pill? Okay, the next thing I have is something for heartburn. So for me, Pepcid works really quickly. I'll use it and within 20 minutes, if I have a really bad heartburn episode,'cause it's not something that I normally have, but if I eat the wrong food on these GLP one medications, sometimes it is horrendous really quickly. So Pepcid is something that I have a few on me. The next one that I have is. If I have nausea. And so for me that Zofran, the other name is Ondansetron. Again, this can come in four or eight milligram tablets, and this is something that you can use about every six to eight hours for nausea. Now, we don't wanna be using this all the time, but I'm gonna tell you this scenario that. I just hear the most commonly occur with my patients. When you're going on these vacations, you inevitably go out to eat, whether that be pizza, Mexican food, you name it, and it's more greasy than what you have at home too much fat content can just lead to a disaster and you can be super nauseous. It can also lead to some diarrhea. So that's another thing that we'll talk about. But being nauseous is really hard, especially when you're trying to go to sleep or maybe you're in the middle of an amusement park and you still have the whole day that that day passes active for. And so I like to just have that, the one that dissolves under the tongue, just that I can take it right away if needed. Again, I rarely need any of this stuff, but when you need it, you need it, so. So that's one again, that would be the only one that I'm talking about here. That's prescription. It's that one. Okay. The other thing that I have on me is. Some Imodium, so this would be if there are loose stools, things like that. Now I wanna give a big disclaimer, loose stools. We really don't want there to be an infectious etiology. And you take this. So I really wanna say always, no matter what the side effect, I really mean this, this is not just about, being a disclaimer. You really always wanna reach out to your doctor because if there's concern, that's an infection. The last thing we wanna be do is doing is holding in all the stool, because part of sometimes the toxins coming out, you want that to happen. So. For me, this is only something where I would use it in a scenario where I know that, like I ate these fatty foods and suddenly now I'm kind of running on the toilet. But it's like it all, the picture fits together. I'm gonna be honest, I've not ever needed to use it, but I still bring it with me just in case. So that's, if you are prone to. Having that diarrhea side, most people are more prone to constipation. Okay, so the other thing that I have in there is Docusate Sena. Like name brand would be Scot, I have up to two, two stool softeners per day in there. Now do I ever need it? No, but I bring it because I do not wanna be backed up on a trip. If I need it, I'm gonna have that stimulant if needed. So again, it's in my bag. Alright. The other thing, and I'm sure I'm probably missing something, I should have actually. Gone and got my actual, got my actual kit. The other thing I have are some alcohol pads. Now, it's not just about taking medication. If you are nauseous, you can sniff an alcohol pad in it right away, can get rid of some nausea. Now, it's not a long-term strategy, but sometimes you're in a car and you're like, I need something this second. Or you just really wanna have some relief. So it's just a little kind of tip that can help you along the road. So this is me personally, but I think that you really need to think through. To have the best kit, you need to think through what side effects do I commonly get, and then what typically helps me, and if you don't know, reach out to your doctor. Some people, for example, with nausea, they'll do really great with, uh, like a ginger chew or like, you know, something a lozenge, other different types of products. And so. If that applies to you, bring the tea that works, bring these things. But for me, this is sort of the, the hit list of what always tends to work for me in different scenarios. And again, I need it very rarely, but it's one of those things where it's like, if you need it and you don't have it on you, it is a very not fun plane ride or time at the amusement park or whatever it is that's happening. And these things can happen really quick, so you can go from being totally fine to, I'm totally nauseous. I just like to be prepared. Alright? Think about what your symptoms are and if you don't know the over the counter or prescription things that are needed. Again, talk to your physician. They should be able to help you think through this. Alright, I hope that you guys are all having a great start to the summer that this was helpful and we'll talk soon.