10 Tips for Dealing with Illnesses away from Home

Traveling with children is never all fun and games. Just like at home, prepare for mishaps and illnesses.

1. Make sure your children are healthy before leaving home.

One way to help minimize illnesses away from home is to make sure they are healthy when they leave home. Do they have minor illnesses, frequent stomach aches, for example, which may worsen while traveling? Do they need immunizations or visits to the dentists? Are their allergies likely to act up where you are going?

2. Check your health and accident insurance policies. Many companies and HMO's are local, statewide or regional entities and do not automatically cover you elsewhere. Some companies want to be notified before you seek treatment (except for emergencies), or reimburse only for emergencies, with the company defining emergency.

3. Carry a medical kit.

Include a cellular telephone and the telephone numbers of you're your children's health care providers. See the section "Medical Kit" for detailed information about assembling your kit.

4. Ask all your children's health care providers for the names of colleagues at your destination.

This is especially important if they have ongoing issues involving an orthodontist, or allergist, for example. Specialists have directories which list all members of their specialty, including members overseas.

5. Look up your children's illness on the web.

All common conditions - asthma, heart problems, food allergies, and diabetes, for example, have national associations. Nearly all have web sites, and these sites usually contain specific travel-related information.

6. For medical help, take children to the largest nearby medical facility.

When possible, do not wait for medical help to reach you. Physicians can do little in a hotel room and may take a long time to get there. Large medical facilities are more likely to have pediatric units and have personnel who speak English.

7. When treatment recommendations seem to be out of the ordinary, check with your doctor back home.

Injections are almost never required for walk-in type illnesses.

8. Ask for a written record of treatments.

This can be extremely helpful in case the illness is ongoing. Also, ask for copies of bills to present to insurance companies for reimbursement.

9. Inform doctors of recent trips when children are sick.

Travel-related illnesses, even ones acquired in this country, may not surface until weeks or even months later. Knowing where you have traveled adds to the list of illnesses you children (and you) may have. This speeds diagnosis and treatment.

10. Tell children what to do if they become lost.

Most children panic when this happens. They run to where they think they last saw you, making it more difficult to find them. Small children should sit down where they are; in the wilderness, they should "hug a tree." A whistle may be helpful. Older children can be supplied with a cellular telephone.