The Pre-Kili Medical

I've been watching clips of the celebrity Comic Relief team climbing Kili recently. They had teams of experts helping them to prepare and making sure they were all fit and healthy enough to endure the climb. They had all sorts of medical checks, got wired up to machines monitoring their heart-rates, entered chambers that mimicked the effects of altitude to see how they fared and took medics with them.
With this in mind, I booked myself an appointment at the doctors. The first thing I asked, was whether I should take Diamox. This drug is believed to help with the effects of altitude, however, the side effects of nausea, head-aches and  tingly feeling limbs are similar to those caused by altitude anyway So does it really help? He strongly advised against it, so I walked away empty handed. Does anybody have any experience of this or strong views either way? I'm not much of a pill-popper as it is, and I normally put head-aches down to either dehydration or tiredness.
I was feeling a little under the weather that day, and have been concerned that if I catch any sort or cold or 'flu (which is fairly easy when you work in a germ factory - I mean school) then my training would be interrupted. 'Training?', he said with a puzzled look on his face. 'What do you need to train for?'  Well there I was, thinking about 7 days of intense climbing and exercise, when he was making it out to be a walk in the park.
He then asked which route we were taking, and proceeded to draw me a little map of the mountain and talk in depth about the toilet arrangements and how the 120 bed dorms can be a party zone. Not what I imagined at all. I had a demonstration of how you should walk on the last day (heel, toe, breathe, rest, breathe) and was told that he has climbed it in trainers, right until the last day.
In total, I spent about 25 minutes in the consultation room, without even seeing a stethoscope. I was told to help myself to dressings and microtape to treat any blisters and told to take paracetamol and go to bed for my impending sickness. This may strike some as worrying, but it actually set my mind at ease a little. It was good to hear somebody talk about climbing Kili as though it isn't the scariest thing in the world and I stopped worrying ... well not completely, but just a little!