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I have just finished a 5 months solo traveling in Europe. While I really enjoy it very much, I am yet to find a proper way to deal with occasional small illness like diarrhea or cold fever. I do have good travel insurance coverage, but mainly I see that as for emergency. What do you do in this situation? I thought maybe there is an international concierge service in case I need it, but just can’t find it.
I would go to pharmacy and ask for remedy. Unless it's really bad, I just ignore small inconveniences.
If is bad, and you are new to the area and otherwise don't know what to do, people at pharmacy will give you some advice where to go.
You should have dialed 113 for medical help for first aid ambulance in Latvia or 103, 03? Or like that in Russia.
The doctors will come to your hotel room; they will administer and sometimes could leave you with meds.
If you are seriously ill - they will take you directly to be admitted to a hospital
The same in Latvia and Estonia.
It is relics from the Soviet Union’s system on call at home ambulance visiting doctor when a person dials 03
Free of charge - not sure if it changed for foreigners
Stealth rabbit is right:ask the locals- the numbers could change?
But OP is talking about "small illness" . Not sure about others, but I don't go with small issues to see a doctor. I go to pharmacy. Or call a pharmacy.
It's also advisable to take a small pouch with first-aid stuff when traveling: bandaids, alcohol wipes, something for headache, cough, running nose, diarrhea, or constipation, perhaps something to help sleep, and whatever is a most common thing one uses back home.
OP could ask at the hotel who to call to pickup the stuff from pharmacy. Or get a taxi.
I was in France recently and came down with a messy cold. I carry Zicam when I travel so I started taking that and then went to a pharmacy and got Actifed (day and night product not sold in the US) which took care of my symptoms and let me sleep. That took care of most of it. Pharmacies were located within an easy walk in Paris and in cities in Spain. The medication was simply Tylenol and a decongestant (daytime) and Tylenol and an antihistamine (nighttime). The combination was effective enough that the cold didn't interfere with my schedule. (I suppose that the pseudoephedrine ingredient is why it is not available here.)
If it is just a small, brief thing, like a bout of diarrhea, just take some anti D meds, & carry on,. That is what I would do at home, as well as abroad.
At home, when I feel unwell or have a fever, I call my doctor, schedule a visit and if needed get medication after I've seen her.
Most of the time I just take OTC cold medication we keep in stock at home.
A few times I've gotten a cold while traveling outside the US, never anything worse than that, thankfully. When I have I just go to the chemist and get OTC stuff like I do here (US).
In neither place do I feel like I need to have someone escort me. I'm not that ill.
When we in Europe, my daughter got a mosquito bite or maybe a few on her knee and it blew up. We found out that you can often just go to a pharmacy and they will give you something as opposed to having to see a doctor. I am not sure about the language barrier if you are in a country that doesn't have a lot of English speakers. We were mostly in France and Italy.
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