Remembering Your Health Needs While on Vacation
Taking care of your health is especially important when you are away from home. The following items may be available in area stores. Unless noted, price does not include shipping.
Medications minder: Those travel pill organizers with the pop-up lids for each day of the week may be fine for those who take only a few pills a day, but what about folks who require more medication than a single compartment will hold? Enter the E-Pill 7-Day Medication Organizer & Reminder Combo. Seven slim plastic cases, each labeled with the day of the week, come with a clear lid that slides open over four large compartments. The cases come in a 61/2-inch-square canvas storage pack with an external pocket for stashing prescriptions or other small papers. The organizer comes with a small battery-operated alarm (batteries included) that can be set to beep up to 31 times a day with easy-to-program slide switches.
E-Pill’s 7-Day Organizer & Reminder Combination is $59.95; (800) 549-0095, www.epill.com.
Herbal help: The Travel Herbal Medical Kit combines botanical components with other first-aid essentials. Housed in a green nylon folding bag with three zippered clear plastic pockets are echinacea and goldenseal extract, ginger extract, aloe vera gel and arnica gel. There’s also aspirin and antihistamine, bandages, bandage scissors, tweezers, moleskin, sterile dressing tape, gloves and other supplies. The kit comes with instructions on the use of herbal medicine and a guide to wilderness and travel medicine.
Travel Herbal Medical Kit is about $55. For information, contact Adventure Medical Kits; (800) 324-3517, www.adventuremedicalkits.com.
Open, says me: Tamper- and child-resistant bottles may provide extra security, but they can pose a serious challenge to people with arthritis or other limitations.
The inexpensive OpenAid Cap Remover solves the problem. Line up the bottle and cap arrows, hook the plastic OpenAid over the cap top, and pull back to open the bottle. The hooked front of the tool can be used to tear off tamper-resistant bottle seals, puncture foil liners and remove cotton packing.
OpenAid Cap Remover (item 10009947) is 99 cents from the Container Store; (888) 266-8246, www.containerstore.com.
Smell and tell: BreathAlert, a palm-size battery-operated odor detector, warns you if your mouth is sending out offensive smells--and becoming a habitat for health-threatening germs.
Just hold the monitor up to your mouth, press the button, breathe into the microchip sensor (which detects the presence of sulfur compounds and gas) and wait for the beep. The LED screen shows four levels of odor. One dot means you’re OK; four means get to a toothbrush and mouthwash pronto. It runs on two AAA batteries.
BreathAlert (WW-1335-85001) is $49.95 from TechnoScout; (866) 877-2688, www.technoscout.com.
CO detector: The COstar P-1 Portable Carbon Monoxide Detector detects the presence of carbon monoxide, which can be deadly to people in a closed car.
About the size of a beeper, the battery-operated detector clips to the visor. Using an infrared sensor, the unit sends out a 70-decibel alarm when carbon monoxide is detected. It comes in two models: a small one for cars and a larger one with wall-mounting hardware for recreational vehicles.
COstar P-1 Portable CO Detector is $39.95 for cars, $45.95 for RVs from the Quantum Group; (800) 432-5599, www.QGinc.com.
*
Gear & Gadgets appears once a month.