 Welcome to Much More on Medicine on the Think Tech live streaming network series broadcasting from our downtown studio at Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Much More on Medicine is an opportunity to learn about all aspects of healthcare. I talk with guests about medical and alternative care treatment, insurance, medication, surgery, rehabilitation, prevention, and much more. The dreamy in the studio is Runa Rosa to talk about healthy holiday airline travel. Will you be flying during this holiday season? If you are, you'll be doing so during a tremendously busy time. The TSA estimates that 26.8 million passengers are expected to fly nationwide between November 22nd and December 2nd this year. According to the senior vice president of American Airlines, Sharon Pinkerton, the Sunday after Thanksgiving will likely be the single busiest day ever for the U.S. airline industry with about 3.1 million passengers traveling. If you are one of these passengers, you will appreciate today's discussion about staying healthy while traveling. Runa Rosa is a licensed physical therapist, earned her MBA with a focus in healthcare, and has traveled to 70 countries worldwide. I've done extensive traveling myself to over 32 countries, and so Runa and I will share with you what we've learned about staying healthy while traveling. Runa, welcome. Thank you so much, Catherine. It's great to have you here to talk about one of our favorite things, and that is foreign travel and actually traveling in the U.S. Let's call it an obsession, right? Absolutely. Yes. Actually, Runa and I have traveled to what countries have we been to together? Turkey. Correct. Brazil. And Czech Republic. That's right. And Germany. Right. Okay. And so out of the 70 countries that you've traveled to, what one stands in your mind as one of the most exciting places that you've gone? You know, it's a tough question, but I really did enjoy Morocco. Oh, and that's one of my favorites as well. And I have to say that it's kind of exciting for you to be here today because you just got back from New Zealand, right? Yes. Okay. So let's get into it and let our guests know what we do to stay healthy. So I understand that there's a few things that you do before you go on a trip to make sure it's a successful trip. Yeah, I think number one, when you pick your destination, you should probably check to see, you know, if there's any trip advisories for that country. So the State Department has a great website that you can check to see if there's any unrest in the country. I almost made a mistake one time booking a flight to Venezuela. And that would have been a big mistake. Exactly. Yes. Actually, and you should check about whether you need a visa, correct? You know, that's a very good thought. Yes. I was at the airport in Honolulu just two weeks ago and I didn't realize I needed a visa for New Zealand. And there you go. Yeah. I didn't realize I needed a visa for Turkey, but when I got there, then you could buy it. Perfect. Yeah. The other thing, too, is to check this, is it the CDC website? Yes. The Centers for Disease Control has a great website, so you can check if you need any vaccination. I've done a lot of traveling to kind of developing countries in Africa and Asia. So you do have to check to see, you know, what kind of diseases are prevalent there that we may not be, you know, vaccinated for, such as yellow fever, malaria, so it's important to check ahead. You may have to start taking pills before your trip, and even some shots you have to take, a couple of doses of six months apart, so you have to be prepared. Okay. So as soon as you get the inclination that you're going to go to Africa, you might want to check into that, right? Exactly. Okay. I know I had vaccinations way back when to go to Morocco. And I remember going to a travel doctor. Now it's a little better. We can just look on the internet, look on the CDC website, right? That's right. Okay. And there's another thing that I do right before I go on a trip, and that is to get a lot of sleep. Okay. And the way I travel is I like to apply red eyes. And if, you know, if I'm going to Europe, it can be 16 hours in the air from Honolulu. If I go to South America, it can be 25 hours in the air. It can be a really long day of flying for two days, right? So what do you do, anything else special in advance of going on a trip? You know, I like to pack light and be fast. Okay. So I don't do any special pillows or, you know, any aids to sleep. I just, you know, take it as it is, and I do my thing on the airplane and be comfortable with a rotation of eating, sleeping, and watching movies. Okay. And so let's look at the backpack picture. Okay. So is this how you travel? That is how I travel. That's my Osprey backpack. And it's a phenomenal pack. You can actually tuck in the straps so it can be a regular bag that you can carry. It is carry-on size so you don't have to worry about checking a bag ever. You can be, like I said, light and fast. Okay. And those cubes are wonderful. You know, they help you stay organized. I just discovered there was a couple of years ago. Sure. I use the cubes in my packing, but I pack a little differently than you. And I have a particular reason. So let me explain. I use a 20-inch wheelie and a backpack. And I check in the 20-inch wheelie. And I actually use a 511 backpack. And that, because I can lift it up into the overhead bin, and I think people that have back problems, I think they need to make sure that they can lift up their bag. Correct. Okay. And also, a lot of times, if you're flying and traveling internationally, you're going to be using trains. And to be able to get in and off of trains, having a backpack is fantastic. It is. And also being able to do so. I can do it with a 20-inch bag and a backpack. It's not a problem. But if I had a larger suitcase, that would be a lot more difficult. Right. And I find the airlines now are becoming more strict with the size of the carry-on. So luckily, this is the perfect size. And I've actually been challenged. Once at an airport in Paris, he said, well, you have to check that bag. And I said, oh, no. Show me where the container is. I'll fit it in there. So he walked me to it. I stuck it in there. And he was a little taken aback. And he said, well, it's over the weight limit. I said, oh, no. Where's your scale? And I caught it. It was a 10-kilogram limit. And I believe I had a 9.9. Okay. Perfect. Fantastic. Now, and that goes with experience. And you know what to pull out of there. So now let's look at the water bottle. So this is my water bottle that I tend to bring. It's not a huge bottle. That's a little travelosity gnome with it. And the story I wanted to point out with the water bottle is I always bring the water bottle on board with me. And the carabiner that's attached, that I can actually hook to the seat pocket so that I have water available at any time during the flight. And I don't necessarily have to bother a flight attendant. I can simply sleep and not have to have the tray down for water. But the reason why I wanted to point this out now is that after you pack and get ready for your trip, you have to go through TSA. Okay. And now you have pre-check as well, right? I do. And global entry. Yes. Okay. Receive the global entry. Yeah. Those are must-dos if you travel a lot. Yes. So one time when I was in Munich, and I forgot to empty out that water bottle, the TSA officer made me drink the contents of the water bottle. Okay. The reason I bring this up is I want to make sure people understand that they need to empty their water bottles. They can't count on, you know, not having that happen. Okay. And so another thing I'd like to have you bring up is the picture regarding the TSA plastic bag with toiletries in it. Yes. Okay. So that's the court bag. And I actually have something I bought from a drug store or something to put some things in. Do you also carry something like this? I do. Yes. A very similar bag that I packed. Okay. Okay. And so once you get on the plane, now my number one thing is to get as much sleep as possible. I actually didn't do that for many years. I would like, oh, get excited. I could read or watch movies or whatever. And then I discovered that my experience once I get to the country is so much better if I'm well rested. Okay. So do you try to sleep when you're on the plane? I do try to sleep, yes. But I also try, if I'm not tired, to get up every hour and do a little walk up and down the aisle. Okay. And the same? I do. I do try to move, okay, because I know that there's a risk of blood clots if you stay in your seat and you're like fixed in your seat. And one thing that I do is I wear compression socks a lot of times when I travel for long distances. I'm not good at wearing them all the time, but I try to do that because I know that's good. Have you had any experiences where you've actually exercised on the plane or noticed anyone doing that? Well, I have a funny story. I took a long flight from Lisbon, Portugal to Miami, and there was a young couple sitting beside me. And I couldn't believe my eyes when shortly after takeoff, they got up and were walking up to change into their athletic outfits. And then a few minutes later, I noticed they were up by the bathrooms and they actually had dumbbells. And this individual was doing squats and doing some bicep curls. You know, they were really going for it. They were pretty serious traders, okay. They were. Yeah. Well, okay. And while we're talking about exercise, let's just move on to some other exercise topics. Okay. Now, the most exercise is I'm really going to do on a plane or maybe some, you know, subtle stretches or something and maybe some walking. But one thing that I do, and this is a high priority for me, is that when I'm booking a hotel, I try to make sure that they have a swimming pool and I'm so interested in having a good swimming pool for swimming laps that I actually will find out what the temperature of the swimming pool is. Do you bring a thermometer with you? No, but I do have one. So sometimes I actually, if I have a lot of opportunity to bring stuff with me, I will actually bring a little tiny kickboard. Now, what kind of exercise do you do when you're traveling? Normally, I go for a run. Okay. So my husband and I do like to just get out there in the streets and go for a nice, you know, five mile run. Of course, we're walking a lot on trips too, right? So I mean, I'll walk as many as 20,000 steps in a day. Right. We're right. And do you have a good pair of shoes? Absolutely. We all talk about shoes when we come back from our break. Right. Okay. We're taking a short break. I'm Katharine Noor. This is much more on medicine on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. We're talking with Runa Rosa about healthy holiday airline travel. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours, the Atherton Family Foundation, Carol Monli and the Friends of ThinkTech, the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education, Collateral Analytics, the Cook Foundation, Dwayne Kurisu, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, Hawaii Energy, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Hawaiian Electric Company, Integrated Security Technologies, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Kamehameha Schools, MW Group, the Shidler Family Foundation, the Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. We're live. I'm Katharine Noor and this is much more on medicine on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. And we're talking with Runa Rosa about healthy holiday airline travel. Before the break, Runa, we were talking about shoes and let's pull up the shoe picture. OK, so the top shoe is called an on the cloud. The the manufacturer is on the type of shoe is the cloud. It's a running shoe. And this is the shoe that I've found after a lot of experimenting that is a very comfortable shoe that can be used in all types of environment. You can walk for a long ways and also you can even get away with wearing it with dress pants at a conference. And so it's a very, very functional versatile shoe. And the one below it, Runa, Runa, is that's a shoe you wear. That is, yeah, that's a Merrill walking trail shoe. It's phenomenally comfortable. And so I found that's the shoe I go to for a lot of the European trips where you're walking a lot on cobblestone streets. You need the comfort. So they're a really nice shoe. OK, so what I've experienced in travel is that because I live in Hawaii, my shoes fall apart. So I've had situations where I've brought a shoe that was a very important shoe for the trip and it's fallen apart on my trip. And I've spent the whole trip trying to find a replacement shoe. So because of that, I've always tried to bring two pairs of shoes that I could wear because of the possibility of one that has a problem. But also there's a really important thing that one should bring. And that is band-aids. I agree. Yes. OK. Do you bring bandages? I do. And I even bring Neosporin. In case you have a blister that breaks open, little Neosporin in a bandaid prevents any infection. OK. Yeah. And so the thing about that, and I had a recent experience in Greece, where I actually had to go and buy band-aids at a pharmacy. And I looked everywhere there and they didn't have a box of band-aids like you would buy in the US. So I asked the pharmacist. It turned out they had to like I had to tell them how many I wanted. And he counted them out from a little drawer. It was like a file cabinet. And so do you also bring any other medicine on a trip? I do, yes. I usually bring Motrin, you know, for ibuprofen and anti-inflammatory painkiller and pseudofed for congestion. OK. And that's the brand name. You can see on the screen, Loperamide is the name of that drug. And I'm sorry, that was a modium. We take that back. And that is for. For monazumas revenge. That's correct. OK. Yes, we have to be careful with that. Right, absolutely. Yes. And when you travel, you know, there are so many possibilities of getting sick and you may wish to get travel insurance. And some countries, they're actually requiring it now. And certainly you do a lot of back country traveling. So there are situations you may want. Is that right? That is correct. OK. I've never done it myself, but certainly there are reasons to do it. When you're doing a big trek, you want to make sure you're covered in case something happens. If you fall, you break, you break a leg. Oh, and as a matter of fact, you know that I fractured my ankle when I was in Montreal. I was foolishly walking downstairs and taking pictures rather than paying attention and actually fractured my ankle. And had I had travel insurance, I would have gotten treatment there. But I made my way back to the US. OK. And have you been sick on a trip before? Yeah, you know, one time my husband got a really bad throat infection. We were traveling in Vietnam and doing a motorcycle tour. And he disregarded the advice to wear like a bandana around his mouth so he wouldn't inhale all the smoke and the exhaust. So unfortunately, he, you know, became ill. And we were on a five country trip. We were doing five countries in five weeks. So our next country was India. And this throat infection was really getting, you know, more severe. So we did ask at the front desk of the hotel we stayed at. And they did have a doctor on call. So I'd highly recommend not to be uncomfortable. Ask at your hotel. They will very likely have an option for you to have a doctor come. And it was for a very minimal fee of 20 US dollars. And he assessed us and even prescribed, you know, an antibiotic for both of us to take. And that really saved us for the rest of our trip. Fantastic. OK, so let's move on to jet lag. How do you prevent jet lag? Yeah, that's tough. I mean, to get the most sleep on the airplane is number one. And then when I get to the destination, I just get into their time zone. Forget about where I came from and stay up until the normal bedtime there. And an exercise for me is key to get my body back on track. I do the same. I get on their time zone right away. OK, so let's move on to one of these important things that you just mentioned, and that is getting sleep on the plane. OK, so I want to talk about how I accomplish this because I'm not a sleeper like you. I know that you have said that you can just fall asleep on a plane. I'm often asleep before takeoff. OK, well, I'm not that person. I have to have all my accoutrements. OK, so let's pull up the neck pillow. Neck pillow picture. OK, so this is what I'm using now. It's called a turtle, and it has a structure inside of it, which allows you to kind of lean on it and it and you can wrap this around your neck and help whatever position that you want it. The nice thing about this and it's kind of weird, but you can actually have your mouth open and you can cover it with that scarf thing. So it's not that embarrassing to sleep as a lot of people have their mouth hanging open. And then let's pull up the. Well, let me just say that with regard to the neck pillow, you have to try different things. I've tried many different ones, and this is the one I'm trying now. It's not my very favorite. My very the one that I was using before is this very small one that just goes around your neck and it's just a foam thing around just your neck. And that one's a very effective one. I don't like the bigger ones. OK, let's pull up the lumbar back pillow. OK, so this is the most important thing I travel with. If I only had to bring one thing, I would bring this. It's called a travel on neck and back pillow, but I use it as a lumbar pillow and it folds up very small and then it self inflates and you can put it where you feel comfortable on your lower back. And this will make that horrible airline seat feel like first class and it makes it easier to sleep. The other thing that I do is I like to elevate my feet a little bit because, you know, those little economy seats, they don't they don't go back right that much. And so I will actually put my feet on like a backpack underneath the seat. But let's pull up the blanket picture. The yeah. OK, so this is a Bucky travel blanket. And I found that this one is my favorite right now. I've tested a lot. It's a really nice size. It's small enough to pack and noise cancellation headphones are fantastic. Although if you don't have the room, you could bring some earplugs. And then in that picture shows slippers. And I wear the slippers. I know a lot of the new airplanes do have a adjustable neck. Oh, and you use that? I do. And it is helpful. OK. Prevents the neck, you know, from sliding to one side or the other. OK. And the other thing I have to admit, I have an obsession with is flying on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Oh, is that wonderful? So I do try to get onto that airplane whenever I can. OK, because it has a lot of new. It has different lighting in it or better sleep. Oh, it has bigger windows. It has a higher humidity. So the effects of jet flag are reduced in that aircraft. Oh, really? And you know what? When we go to the Olympics in Tokyo, I'm actually flying on the Dreamliner when I go back. Perfect. OK, so I have to put that same flight. Right. So OK, so when there is a lot of germs and on a plane. OK, do you use sound sanitizer? Yes, I do. OK, are you one of those people who wipes the tray and all around? I do not do that. Do you? I don't. But I hear of people doing it. It's not a bad idea because it really don't clean the planes much. OK, how about the blanket on the plane? I snuggle up with that blanket. Yes, I do. OK, so I don't use it because I know they don't wash them that often. But but you know, I think that's a matter of choice, right? OK, OK. How about drinking the water and ice on the plane? Yeah, I have no trouble with that. OK, I use it. I do as well. How about alcohol? Do you drink wine? Well, let me ask you, you can tell me first. I do. You know, if the international flight and it's free wine or beer, I'm on it. OK, I do as well. But I only do it on the international flights. And the reason why is they give you a meal and with that, they'll just pour you some wine. That's sort of normal. And I have wine with my meal on a normal basis. However, if it's a matter of me getting sleep and that's my agenda is getting sleep on the entire flight, I absolutely will not drink alcohol. And that's because I also I do take Ambien when I fly. And that's a prescription sleep medication. However, I think people need to talk to their doctors about any type of sleep medication they take on a plane. And they should probably test it before they get on the plane. I did want to mention one more thing. Traveling to a foreign country, if you can download the Google Translate application on your phone, very helpful, because I had an instance in Sicily where a friend of mine got ill and I had to take him in in an ambulance to the hospital. And I had to converse with the paramedics using Google Translate. So it really worked out well. I was able to tell him his history and what medication he possibly could have taken to cause his reaction. OK, so that was really helpful in terms of dealing with medication. And another thing that I wanted to point out with about medication is they always say to bring the original medication bottles of prescription bottles. And I've done that, but I've also put medication in other containers as well. I've never had a problem with it, although the one thing that I will not put in a different container is Ambien, because that's a controlled substance. And I feel uncomfortable taking a controlled substance outside of the medication bottle to another country. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I would agree. I think that's a great idea. I've never taken the bottles with me either. I put them in small plastic bags and I label them so that I'm aware of what. OK, yeah. And, you know, I think to kind of wrap this up and we've talked about a lot of different subjects a little quickly. And I think the bottom line is I think it's a good idea to check those sites. CDC, you know, you can register with the State Department. You can check the State Department sites. Check with your doctor before you travel. Consider getting travel insurance. Pack in a way that you feel that you can carry, that you can take charge of your items rather than something so heavy that you can't lift it. Exactly. That can cause back pain. And also to be as comfortable and as safe on the plane. I know I know you've mentioned that you are careful about the seat that you sit in. Yes, I try to pick the safe, the safe, which is over the wing. OK, so anyway, so we so there are so many things you can do to be healthy when traveling. So we are out of time and we'll have to wrap it up. I'm Catherine, nor this is much more on medicine on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. We've been talking with Runa Rosa about healthy holiday airline travel and thank you for joining us today. And I wish you a very safe and healthy holiday season. Enjoy your travels and thanks to our broadcast engineer, our floor manager and to Jay Fidel, our executive producer who puts it all together. Please join us for future ThinkTech productions.