Originally Posted by matagi
A suggestion for tampons .... if she isn't keen on tampons, I suggest she try Tampax, I find them much easier to insert than any other tampon and the cardboard sleeve keeps your fingers off the actual tampon so less risk of contamination. Tampax also seem to be one of the few brands which remain consistent in different countries. As Machka suggested, she might want to try using tampons before the trip to see how she likes them.
I personally like the compact Playtex. They also have an applicator that keeps your fingers off the actual tampon (I HATE tampons without applicators), but they are initially half the length of a "normal" tampon when they are in their packaging. That makes them easier to pack into a pannier, and makes them very descrete to use.
Originally Posted by matagi
Using tampons will not increase her risk of yeast infections but long days in the saddle will, because yeasts love warm moist environments. As someone has suggested, it would be a good idea for your wife to take her favourite treatment with her because not only will she be able to start treatment early if she notices a problem, but she won't have the hassle of trying to work out what is a comparable treatment in a foreign country.
Even within my own country I've discovered that some brands work better than others. It would be a good idea to know what works and what doesn't ahead of time ... and more specifically to know the ingredients. If you know that the one that works has 20% of this and 10% of that in it as its medical ingredients, then you can look for something with exactly that or close to it elsewhere.
Which brings me to another point: medications. Here in Canada, I'm used to walking into any pharmacy and picking up ibuprofen or tylenol. However, I've discovered that in other countries, including the US, UK, and Australia, those two products may not exist (I couldn't find tylenol in the UK), or may come in different dosages (the only ibuprofen I found there came in 400 mg, whereas I'm used to 200 mgs), or there might be shelves full of other products! In Australia there seemed to be a vast array of painkillers at the one pharmacy I stopped at ... nothing that looked like ibuprofen or tylenol, but a whole bunch of others I'd never heard of. My cycling partner informed me that he was surprised to see one of them there because it was banned in the UK.
And Claritin ... Claritin is a very necessary product to allow me to cycle among all the growing things and dust, etc. out there and breathe at the same time. Here in Canada, I've always been able to stroll into any pharmacy and pick up a box of Claritin with no prescription and no problems at all. However, until just recently, in the US prescriptions were required for Claritin. And in Australia, they do sell Claritin over the counter like they do in Canada, but they call it a different name.
So, if your wife likes a certain type of PMS pill (for me it is Pamprin), it would be a good idea to bring a bottle of it (in the orginal bottle and appropriately labelled, of course) and to know the ingredients so that when you are standing in a pharmacy in another country staring at an array of foreign bottles, you have some idea what you are looking for.