to refuse any, er, intimate contact until 48 h after DH recovers fully from traveller's diarrhoea?

[markMinkowski]

Numpty DH is on his way over to this side of the world to visit. He has just been to a meeting in India this week, began to have diarrhoea yesterday, it's got worse today. He admits having eaten fresh (peeled) fruit, salad, and drunk iced water. And travelling without relevant vaccines, or carrying loperamide or oral rehydration solution. FFS.

We're sposed to be meeting up for a long-awaited (every 6 months) dirty weekend of TTC, tomorrow evening. And he has just sent me an email before getting on the plane about looking forward to the TTC bit.

Sorry, but I'm not going near him this weekend... particularly now he's sent that email!

Loperamide really isn't good for travellers diarrhoea.

If you want to avoid catching it you will prob have to do more than just avoiding intimate contact.

I can't imagine he'd actually want to either. The last time I had D&V "intimate contact" would have been the last thing on earth I'd have considered - death would have been preferable. I reckon it's a nice idea he has in his head but the reality will be different.

He's got to sort the bloody vaccines out, though. That's just madness.

Loperamide is good for some causes of TD but not others - not taken to complete stoppage levels, but slowing gut motility down... I agree it's no use if you've got cholera or shigella or campylobacter or giardia... (unlikely to be giardia given he only got to india on Tuesday)

fluffymouse I'll be doing the full-on hazmat cleaning the taps and doorhandles with bleach...

Hassled I completely agree. The childlike refusal to sort out his own bloody health is the result of him having been enabled and fortunate. He's clueless, but what can one expect - his mother was still insisting on booking his doctor and dentist appointments when he went to visit his parents well into his 30s... and she's totally clueless about stuff like infection control. I've been trying to get him to sort himself out, pointing out that the only reason I have prior knowledge of what vaccines to have, what drugs to take, etc is because I take the initiative of reading the NHS advice... but it's a work in progress

fluffymouse sorry - failed to say I was thinking about the fact he's getting on a plane. Loperamide on a plane makes sense (if it works) to help with infection control in a situation where you could easily pass the infection to hundreds of others with a bit of inadequate hand washing. In general non-plane situations I would be more interested in bleach, hot water and soap... and keeping the person away from human contact for several days...

I would be surprised if he feels up to it, if he has a bad dose. I wouldn't!

Also, I hope he is careful on the plane. My beautiful, ebf baby boy, 5 months old, caught amoebic dysentery on a plane ....

Indigo18 sorry to hear that. Hope that your boy is OK now.

It makes me livid that a grown adult can be so bloody irresponsible about this kind of thing. It's also kind of disappointing because we've spent the last 5 months talking about using this weekend as a big TTC-fest, and he didn't even have to go the bloody meeting in India... and it will all be my fault for being heartless, tomorrow... at which point I will think it's a bloody good idea we have another 6 months before the next TTC session.

Of course yanbu. You have every right to refuse sex on any basis. That's a particularly good reason! Not sure conceiving with an inevitable case of D&V is ideal, either.

Really frustrating that you have such infrequent chances to try, ttc can be incredibly stressful under the best circumstances.

I would not be up for trimming anyone's toenails whilst the danger of being puked on still remains. YADNBU.

mark- yes, it was a long time ago and he is a strapping 6 foot 3 now! It was a horrible shock, though, and made me want to re-think life in Africa and run back home. It is incredibly easy to pass these bugs on, though, and he definitely caught it on the plane, probably when I was struggling to change a nappy in the toilet.
Hope you have a good trip, and manage to do the deed!

Phew. I thought I might be seen as being a heartless cow, under the circumstances. I tend to be completely intolerant of other people not taking responsibility for their own health, and I know that with the best preparation in the world one can still end up with D&V.

But his admission of what he ate - and it's not even his first trip to India! - combined with not sorting out appropriate vaccines and drugs "because he was too busy at work" just makes me think he's got a long way to go before he's ready to be a parent. Well, he could easily be a UselessDad kind of parent but that's really not the kind of person I'm having kids with.

I'm meeting him tomorrow armed with a bottle of bleach and a stern expression...

If he is unvaccinated then D and V is the least of your worries and his.

If he really has no vaccinations he is irresponsible and selfish to go to India. Oh, and malaria kills BTW.

if you want your kids to have a father, tell him to start using his brain.

I think we're probably OK on the vaccinations because he went a few years ago - though I was extremely p'd off to learn this week that he hadn't even considered working out which vaccinations he'd already had, or taking antimalarials or anything.

It's a bit sad that this weekend, which was going to be a happy hormonal shagfest interspersed with socializing with friends, is now going to be another weekend spent not socializing, and arguing about me being a cow and him taking responsibility for things. I guess these arguments need to be had. I wish they didn't.

Errm, you are TTC'ing with this Manchild ?

'AF' says what I didn't dare....

There has been a lot of discussion about stuff in the past 18 months, a lot of him getting off his backside and sorting other things out, and I really thought we'd got past the manchild stage. Sadly, it looks like we absolutely haven't. I don't think it's grounds for LTB (given that we don't even live in the same country anyway and only got married 6 months ago) but it's certainly made me reconsider TTCing, not that that's going to happen now anyway. Oh well, at least i can go back on the pill, was missing it...

mark, this isn't really satisfactory is it ?

is this the kind of man you dreamed of marrying ?

of course it's not satisfactory at all. Just digging out the pill packet and replacing the folic acid packet. Symbolic toiletries bag arrangements...

I think people can learn - and DH has shown a lot of ability to learn and to sort stuff out. I am not perfect either. But the manchild kind of stuff still pops up at inconvenient moments... and the argument is always the same way round - and I don't think it's just because i"m a cow. (I loathe the word manchild. But it expresses an unfortunately totally valid and relevant concept).

I am not perfect either

I am sorry love, I believe this to be a common rationalisation for sticking with a sunk cost fallacy.

What have you got planned for the few days after? If he's feeling better when he gets here then I still would assuming no important deadlines etc. OH and I have never given eachother D&V.

As a regular traveler - vaccines are a must but most last a lifetime/long time. From what I remember for India you only need Typhoid and Hep A - all others needed are part of the normal vaccine program. Hep A lasts for life, not sure about Typhoid.

You don't need anti-malarial for the north and south of India - it's only the bit in the middle they are needed. They also are not 100% so it's more about appropriate precautions over not being bitten.

Not everyone travels with rehydration sachets and anti-diah. tablets. Sounds like you are annoyed at him for some other reason deep down.