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Hi there,
I need some urgent advice on a health matter as I am due to trek this SUN 4 Sep!I have come down with a flu, I am coughing and everytime I cough it hurts my chest, joints. Add in sniffles, and a general unwell feeling.
My doctor has said it will pass in a couple of days however she did raise the matter of added stress of the climb/heights to my heart when my body is trying to cope with being sick.
I would ask your advice and request as quick a response as possible in order to make a decision. Please contact me either via email or phone 07 46374154
Cheers
Andrew Gehrig
Hi Andrew, I sent around your message to a couple of doctors who had walked the trail and this is only response I have received so far:
————————————————————————————–Hi Gail. I've just read your message. It's very difficult for me to give an appropriate medical response to the query. It depends on the age of the walker, there previous health, level of current fitness, previous walking experience etc. Advice as to whether the trekker is medically safe to undertake the walk is best to come from the walker's own doctor. Generally speaking if the walker is young, very fit and an experienced bushwalker it may not be a problem, however viral infections can hit even young people unpredictably hard. One should er on the side of caution.
Hi Gail, thanks for the reply.
I had a check up this morning. The main concern being blood pressure and the stress of the trek on the heart having to cope with that as well as an infection. BP is good, the doc reminded me that the doxycycline I am taking for anti-malarial will help fight the infection and by the time we are onto the trek I should be past the worst of it.I am looking forward to the trip too much to cancel however as an option is there any financial penalty if I reschedule my trip?
Cheers
Hi Andrew, no financial penalty if you transfer to another trek…only if you were to cancel completely at this point of time in which case you would have to claim off your travel insurance.
If anyone reads this topic and wonders if it is advisable to do the trek with a cold or flu. A couple of observations from my trip. The illness passed by the time I started as I thought we were commencing the trek the day after arrival. Taking the anti-Malarial Doxyciline (SIC?) helped here as it is an anti-biotic (not sure about SP Lager but a few of those helped too). Anyways my concerns were well founded I suppose as I did not want to be a liability and really felt like crap two days prior to flying out. But I am so glad I made the decision to go and let the illness pass.
PS oh yeah, if you are gonna trek Kokoda, do it with nurses (or is that medicos?? lol). Whatever good medicine you may have they will have something better! ha ha
Cheers
Andrew
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