Holidays
WHO HASN’T EXPERIENCED at least a couple of the
8 health issues guaranteed to ruin your holiday (see list below)? But it doesn’t have to be that way - there are plenty of natural remedies to help stave off the most common holiday maladies.
8 Health Issues That Will Ruin Your Holiday
1) Sunburn
2) DVT- Deep vein Thrombosis on flights
3) Mosquito bites
4) Sickness
5) Diarrhoea
6) Parasites
7) Jet lag
8) Stress
NATURAL REMEDY COUNT-DOWN
Avoid all the usual holiday ailments with this natural remedy countdown.
3 to 4 weeks before travel
Around 3-4 weeks before long haul flights consider Horse Chestnut and Pycnogenol capsules (to help prevent DVT - deep vein thrombosis).
2 weeks before
Two weeks before you head off, start taking Rhodiola Rosea. Rhodiola is an adaptogenic herb which will help with jet lag and variations in altitude and temperature. Rhodiola is also an effect anti-stress herb and so will help you deal with any holiday tantrums from your family or delayed flights.
Add a 200mg capsule of B1 (thiamine) to fend off mosquito bites. B1 makes your skin smell unpleasant to insects, with no perceptible smell to humans!
1 week before
One week before you set off start taking Beta Carotene and Grape Seed Extract to help strengthen your skin against sunburn,.
On holiday
Once on holiday, supplement daily with Grapefruit Seed Extract and Acidophilus capsules to prevent parasitic infestation and holiday tum.
BECKY YATES, 40, from Blackheath loves to travel abroad, especially the Greek Islands, but she has a problem… every time she goes there, she is bitten by mosquitoes… not just a few but dozens. In fact, in 2002, she counted 56 insect bites over her body.
“They swell up like golf balls and become infected,” she explains. “I look and feel terrible. If I am bitten around the ankles, they swell up so badly, I can’t get my trainers on.”
In 2003, Becky travelled to Greece with a spray of citronella, tea tee oil and some plug-in atomisers, but nothing seemed to work and yet again she was forced into the local chemist to coat her numerous bites in iodine.
2004 brought about a change of strategy, as a friend recommended she take vitamin B1. At her local health food store, she bought Viridian’s High One B-Complex.
“This time I was off to Zante. I took two capsules of the High One B-Complex every day for two weeks before I travelled and carried on taking them right through the holiday,” explains Becky. “I came back to the UK with just six small bites. I was delighted! The thing that really convinced me was that everyone else in the hotel was complaining about the mosquitoes, I was the only one who didn’t suffer!”
Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine is a very safe, non-toxic vitamin. Some studies suggest that taking large doses of thiamine is effective in reducing mosquito bites. This vitamin apparently produces a skin odour that is not detectable by humans, but is disagreeable to pregnant mosquitoes.
It seems to be especially effective for hypersensitive allergic individuals. Thiamine takes about 2 weeks before the odour fully saturates the skin.
Vitamin B1, a simple and safe natural remedy, really worked for Becky and now she can have bite-free holidays!