Over the decades of my travel, the most common complaint of fellow travelers, other than jet lag, is traveler's constipation. Nobody wants to talk about it. Even the "travel nurse" in the Travel Clinic at Kaiser was dumbfounded when I brought up the subject. But over the years, I have picked up a few pointers, some rather extreme, and some rather practical to counteract this very real, and discomforting situation. At the "bottom" of this condition are the reasons we have the problem in the first place. In no particular order, these are: 1) change in diet, 2) dehydration, 3) lack of exercise, and 4) change in routine. Even the medical experts have a name for this, commonly known as dysbiosis, though I prefer to call it gut lag.
... read more
