Is There A Cat In My Apartment Or Is That Just The Larium?

Upon moving to Uganda, I went back and forth about what to do about malaria. Malaria prevention is a complicated issue because most Western doctors will tell you with no hesitation that if you live in a malaria zone, you should take malaria prophylaxis. And in their mind, Africa is a malaria zone—all of it. But that’s not giving you the full story in my opinion. There are certain areas in every country/region/city that are known to be more “malarial” than others, and there are other ways to protect yourself other than taking drugs. And the various options for malaria prophylaxis have a lot of side affects (physical AND mental), and taking any of them for a long period of time isn’t particularly good for your system. But then again, neither is getting malaria. So it’s sort of a toss up.

But for now, I’m taking larium and talking to other expats and doctors here (who see a lot more malaria than my friendly New York City doctor anyway!) to get a sense of my options for the longterm. And in the meantime, I have to admit that I’m getting a lot of amusement out of larium’s particularly interesting psychotropic side effects (or built-in bonuses, depending on how you look at it). Basically, in my case, these side effects manifest themselves in REALLY, REALLY vivid dreams. I’ve had these before (In Kenya I once woke up with my fully-laced hiking boots on in bed because I had dreamt that I was summiting Mt. Kenya), but here they’ve felt even more real. For example, last week I was dreaming (apparently) about a cat in my apartment. It kept meowing and I was getting really annoyed, so I got out of my bed and went looking for the thing at 4am. It took me about 15 minutes (and I have a SMALL apartment) to realize that there was no cat and I had dreamt it all. And in retrospect, OF COURSE there isn’t a cat in my apartment. But I really had to convince myself of this fact because the dream had felt SO real…

The next week (I notice that I usually have the really vivid dreams a day or two after taking the medicine), I dreamt that I went to take money out of the ATM and I had $7 in my bank account. I woke up the next morning in a panic and was in the process of looking up the international toll free numbers for Bank of America to call in and report a problem when I realized that it might have been a dream. (I think the fact that I don’t generally visit ATMs in the middle of the night is what finally tipped me off…) And sure enough, when I logged into my account, I had more than $7 (not much more, but that’s another issue altogether).

So while my larium side effects have been mild and sort of entertaining, on a serious note, there are some REALLY dangerous side effects of taking larium, particularly if you have history with depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. So while I’ve made light of some of these issues, if you are looking into malaria prophylaxis (for a short or extended period of time), please talk to your doctor and do your research, as I am no expert…