Answer Montezuma like a local

The silliest advertisement I saw on TV before I murdered it began like this. "I am not an MD, but I play one on TV." Dressed in a white coat such as doctors and lab techs wear, the "TV personality" proceeded to recommend some medication! MD? Mentally deranged. Here is a confessed impostor making a health-medical recommendation to an audience of perhaps millions without so much as a . . . and we are fools to allow him or her into our homes. Thus the explanation for my, er, act of self defense.

But bits of insanity about health and medicine are all around us. For example, for years I have heard about the peril of travel to Mexico for a week or more, Montezuma's Revenge, travelers' diarrhea. By and large, if you experience other-than-usual-and-to-be-expected diarrhea, you "should take" antibiotics and those stopping-up, settle-down-your-insides pills. This will kill everything in the nether reaches and hold it/them there for safekeeping till your normal routine returns sometime later. Not insanity exactly, but precious little about causes.

Isn't the first step in commoner sense to ask what the condition is and then how to treat it? Do Mexicans know what causes diarrhea and related symptoms that last more than a few days, what we without hesitation make preemptive strikes against down there with our wonder drugs? And if they know, what do they do about it?

We can discuss one theory non-technically. That theory begins with the idea that an upset digestive system is normal for foreigners, at least at first. For example, Mexicans who visit the US reportedly have the same complaints as we do. They experience discomforts from different foods and water and sanitation standards just as we do if we venture too far south. Intestinal maladies come from changes in climate and latitude. To be expected, we can say. And they are short term.

Now, do Mexicans suffer from short or long term distress when visiting the US? To some extent experiencing short term problems must be true. If you travel, change time zones, eat and drink different stuff than at home, some adjustments can be expected regardless of nationality or cultural background. However, if you stay longer in foreign climes, I guess you either get used to things or you die.

I have noticed that Mexicans who visit the US and stay longer have been known to die in country. However, the causes do not seem to be digestive. They die of the same causes as we the indigenous populations do, from the same scourges, heart disease, cancer and materialism. These longer-term visitors and residents must have gotten used to US water, food, standards of cleanliness and the rest of what our culture has to offer.

Having addressed the obvious, we can turn to ensuring happier times in Mexico. Chances are you will get the (true) Revenge. You can die or wish you would. Beyond the normal adjustments noted above, some/many foreigners in Mexico do not get accustomed to daily realities and the vigilance needed for living in health and comfort. They get what Mexicans know is not revenge but givens, worms and parasites.

If you travel to Mexico and venture outside of the first-world hotel's restaurant and coffee shop, you might get what "everybody in Mexico" realizes is for real, so real that they regularly take precautions against it, er, them.

Cutting to prevention and treatment of these known causes of protracted colonic discomfort or distress, we can cope as locals do, and this should be the tourist's and extended visitor's first choice, without fear or risk. Here you go.

* Drink fresh coconut milk or pineapple juice.
* Eat fresh pineapple, papaya, papaya seeds (like pepper if chewed), garlic in all forms including raw, guayaba (guava, yellow when ripe, widely available in country), and pumpkin seeds.
* Eat street food only after some research. A home-based fast food counter is probably better than a small cart that appears now and then in different locations around town.
* You know the drill for water. The only water in any form that should go in your mouth should be purified. In cases of diarrhea, drink lots and lots.

When the above prevention/treatments fail, buy Vermox, an over-the-counter de-worming and parasite-eradicating medication. (Sounds so, so Ortho-like!). The active ingredient is mebendazole. Comes in various doses. I like the one pill, take-care-of-'em-all-today dose.

We gringos love pills and supplements. You can get all you need or want in Mexico, even prescription medications without the obligatory, not to say expensive, visit to the US doctor. S/he is back home and virtually unreachable anyway from Mexico.

One note about Vermox. Remember the name Vermox. Showing your squirming index fingers in the region of your belly or digestive tract does not indicate the problem or what you want to purchase sufficiently.

Amebisil, active ingredient ascaridol, is "known all over Mexico." I haven't tested this hypothesis, but I have used this supplement. Given signs or symptoms of having the little buggers in your system, take two or three pills the first day and one per day thereafter for a week. According to a local source, "They don't like the taste. So eat something with Amebisil to make them think it is mealtime as usual. Surprise 'em!" Amebisil is available in herbal medicine and vitamin shops--tienda naturista.

Prices vary for all of the above, including the drugs without prescription, the fruit and seeds and so forth, but definitely cheaper than in the US.

Symptoms? We don't need to go into that here, do we? (They are so, so clinical.) And getting a test to make sure you have the buggers, ugh.

Am I a doctor? No, but I act like one, and enjoy worm- and parasite-free eating and drinking in Mexico. The very thought of infestation when feeling drained of energy and hungry and like the bathroom can't be too close for comfort--this is diagnosis enough to down some safe stuff locals get along fine with, thank your pharmaceuticals very much.

In the event of more serious or persistent symptoms and disturbances, inform yourself more thoroughly and see a real doctor in Mexico or when you get back home.

© 2008 Kevin Mactavish