If you get d&v in Egypt.A public service announcement

[PrincessHoneysuckle]

Buy Antinel from a pharmacy.Found this recommended on a trip advisor forum.
I've only took one tablet so far and feel a bit better already after being up 1am til 6am vomiting on and off.
My fault for using tap water to brush my teeth on the first day.

Definitely not! Bottled water is available in the hotels

We love Egypt and the people are the friendliest we've met abroad.

Yes, we went as a party of 5 and all were fine but we were very careful only to use bottled water and no ice

Me.
I went about 10 years ago and stayed in a beautiful hotel in Cairo. Some of the best food I've ever eaten. Didn't get ill at all. But I was very careful about water / salads etc.

My stomach has never been the same since a trip down the Nile 20 years ago. Never had an upset stomach and vomiting like it. I wasn’t alone. The stench on the boat was awful. Horrendous. Been susceptible to stomach bugs ever since.

Me, been twice and all were fine. Cuba though...DH was going round the hotel begging for immodium from other guests as we were flying the next day.

not sure you mean Indian 😅

We were there for two weeks, one of which was spent on a Nile cruise. Five of us and only one (my 75 year old mum) was ill and that was briefly, thankfully. We actually think it was the extremes of temperature combined with overdoing things in such heat that caused it rather than the water/food. We were all incredibly careful though with regards to water/ice/food etc whereas a few others on the trip that weren't did get ill. DS has been back twice since with friends and none succumbed to d&v.

Because in lots of countries you can walk into a pharmacy and ask for all sorts of medication without a prescription, including antibiotics, and they sell them to you. It is wonderfully simple and straightforward. All at your own risk though!

According to the Forbes survey, Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt is the second most likely tourist destination in the world for travellers contracting stomach bugs.
One of my consultant surgeons (who knew perfectly well to avoid tap water, ice etc) still managed to get so seriously ill that he ended up needing a partial bowel resection.

@RedDoughnut I went to Luxor and was fine.
However...
It was hard work trying to remember no salad, fruit, ice, cleaning teeth with bottled water. One slip up and I probably would have got ill. The hygiene isn't the best.

DH and I didn't get ill when we went there. Most of those we were travelling with did though - probably thanks to Luxor McDonalds. DH and I didn't go and had falafel from a street vendor instead. We thought was possibly risky but turned out to be a good move given how ill the others were...

4 times been and no bugs. Never picked up a bug anywhere in the world.

I travelled overland I to Egypt many moons ago (the 90s) and because I'd been ill in another place (ameobic dysentery and malaria) I looked like I was ill.. and they insisted I had a public health test. I mean, the indignity of being tested to get into a place likely to reinfect me ...

@lingmerth you can't buy it OTC in the UK because it is an antibiotic. Sensibly, in the face of antibiotic resistance, we don't hand out antibiotics so people don't self medicate with them for something that doesn't need them or pointlessly take them for viruses.

However, you can get antibiotics for traveller's diarrhoea prescribed to take with you from a travel clinic. Although maybe not for a package holiday in Egypt where it is easy to see a doctor if you get sick.

Hope you feel better soon, OP.

I would love to go to Egypt but as a vegetarian I'd wonder about what I could eat?

As someone had said further up a lot of the cause of D&V in egypt is the extreme change in temp, going from boiling hot temps to ice cold water, showers, air con etc.

DH is vegan and he manages fine. Felafel, houmous with flatbread, veg curries or stir fries, pasta with a veg based sauce, soups and salads. If you’re in the more touristy areas a lot of restaurants now offer a vegan option or two as standard. You’d have no problem as a vegetarian.

I didn’t and I mooched around all over the place. Tourist resort for a week then Cairo then Dahab for scuba diving staying in a hostel. Bottled water for everything and check the seal when you buy them. Endless cups of hot, sweet tea seemed fine too.

Friend is a travel photographer for magazines so has travelled widely. She is a vegetarian and says only eats well cooked hot food, avoid meat, salads, fruit, dairy ice etc. Don't drink alcohol and you'll avoid many bugs. She's had many colleagues ill on her travels.

You could eat all the Egyptian veggie foods that you probably already eat at home and can buy in Waitrose but didn't realise were Egyptian, @RedDoughnut 😂

Houmous, baba ghanoush, falafel or taamaya (fava bean falafel), shakshouka (eggs in spicy tomato sauce), ful medames (the national dish of Egypt made with mashed fava beans), koshary (pasta, rice, lentils with chickpeas and fried onions, sometimes with other stuff), stuffed peppers/aubergine/tomatoes/baby marrow or stuffed vine leaves, lentil soup, halabesa (spicy tomato and chickpea soup), veggie stew, okra stew... Lots of Egyptian food is vegetarian, even if you discount the wonderful salads for hygiene reasons. Lots of lovely things with cheese too but I suspect most of it isn't vegetarian cheese.

I would imagine there is plenty of Western vegetarian food available in the touristy destinations too. I spent a lot of time there in the 80s/90s and didn't have any issues finding veggie food, even in places that were quite remote and not touristy.

@RedDoughnut , I picked up no bug, but that was because I’d been horrendously ill on holiday before (not in Egypt) so I didn’t touch anything that hadn’t been thoroughly cooked - and hadn’t been sitting around in e.g. buffets for flies to visit.

So no salads, no fruit, except the odd banana. And obv. only bottled water, inc. for brushing teeth.

Took the same precautions in India, also fine.

@Namechangeforanamechange ah ok I didn't realise it was an antibiotic, that explains it.

Yep same here after a trip in mid 1990s. We were super careful in and around our hotel in Luxor but put it down to a salad on a boat trip on the Nile.

we were sent to a pharmacy by the rep but I still had to have 2.5 weeks off work when we got back as I was so I’ll and have terrible IBS ever since.

I’ve had colonoscopies and gastroscopies but no explanation apart from very sensitive stomach after Egypt. I have to have a quite restrictive diet now.

Never drink the tap water, it’s not worth the risk.