Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 2, by A.&J. R.

Let’s now focus on the supplies we will require to be able to address the medical issues we are most likely to experience. This goes way beyond the first aid kit. At the end of each section, we’ll also note essential oils that may be helpful.

Essential Oils

The specific usage of essential oils, the amounts, carrier oils, and contraindications are beyond the scope of this article. The essential oils are included here so that you can see what you may wish to acquire to treat conditions you and your family are more likely to experience. Just as you’ll want medical references to guide you in any care you administer in a collapse situation, you’ll want to have an essential oils reference to guide you in their use. Remember, we are not licensed medical providers; we just want to be prepared with necessary supplies for caring for our families.

Pre-Existing Conditions

First, we’ll begin with some pre-existing conditions, the problems we already know that we have, and which quite a number of people feel will be a death sentence at TEOTWAWKI.

Diabetes

Most of the type 1 diabetics we have encountered who have even given a thought to life post-collapse just plan on dying. Therefore, they don’t plan at all, and they will die. But collapse doesn’t have to mean a death sentence for diabetics. Insulin was first isolated and prepared in the 1920s using equipment found in a modern high school chemistry lab. The detailed instructions are given in this online. Eva Saxl and her husband saved Eva and about 400 other diabetics in Shanghai during World War II by making their own insulin. If they did it then, we can do it now. (Some say it’s not any more difficult than making meth.) Of course, most diabetics are going to be a little wary of DIY insulin. I know I am, and I’ll be the one making it. Getting production going will take some effort and coordination.

A Supply of Insulin and Everything That Goes Along With It

Now’s the time to build up a very good supply of insulin, as well as everything else that goes along with it. You’ll want glass syringes that can be sterilized and needles that can be sharpened. If you don’t know someone who works in a hospital and can help you with the glass syringes that are becoming increasingly hard to find, Shop Med Vet. It is your new best friend. Of course, you’ve already stockpiled your lancets and meters and strips. But if the meters get EMP’d (hopefully, the back-up meter(s) you have stored in a Faraday cage will be safe) or when the strips run out, you need a Plan B.

Plan B for Diabetic Testing

Plan B for diabetic testing involves ***veterinary urinalysis strips***amazon.com/Pet-Urine-Test-Strips-Disease/dp/B076H6QWX8 that are visually read. (This is what diabetics did 40+ years ago.) Those strips can be cut in half, or even thirds if your eyes are really good, to make them last longer. But those strips may eventually run out as well.

Plan C

What’s Plan C? Well, the kidneys start spilling sugar when you reach 180-200 mg/dl. Dip a cotton ball in your urine, put it outside, and then see if ants are attracted. If they are, your blood sugar levels exceed 200 mg/dl. If no ants are available, dip your finger in your urine and see if it tastes sweet. Sugars are high if it does. Is your urine sterile? Right when it comes out, yes. Is it safe to test this way? Yes. Is it gross? Double yes. Don’t like doing it this way? Then stock more checking supplies, at least for when ants aren’t available. (I’ll definitely be stocking more here.)

Type 2 Diabetics

Type 2 diabetics, you already know you need to exercise, eat right, and lose weight to reduce or eliminate the need for medications. In the meantime, make sure you have an adequate supply of your medications. If you’re on insulin, imagine how happy you will be to be injecting the DIY brown stuff. (Yes, DIY insulin is a dirty brown.) Personally, I would find the thought of having to taste test my urine motivating enough to lose weight and get off meds altogether. (Alas, I am Type 1, so there’s no hope of getting off insulin.) Also, both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics should consider prepping for a low- to no-carbohydrate diet to extend the insulin supply much longer. Essential oils: geranium, ginger, cypress, eucalyptus, and lavender.

Hypothyroidism

Generic substitutions for Synthroid for hypothyroidism are available extremely inexpensively from All Day Chemist. Currently, a year’s supply of the maximum dose is less than $35. If you use less than the maximum dose, you can buy the larger dose pills and use a pill splitter to reduce your cost to half or less. Dr. Cynthia Koelker has written a self-study course for preppers to treat their thyroid conditions post-apocalypse. It is available at http://armageddonmedicine.net/?p=2229. Thyroxine can also be obtained from sheep, pig, and cow thyroids and doesn’t require any processing. However, it does require those animals.

Asthma

Of course, acquire as much of a stockpile as possible of your asthma medications and keep your environment as clean as possible. Theophylline, salbutamol, and inhalers are available through overseas pharmacies. Epinephrine inhalers and capsules are available without a prescription from at least one company in the U.S.– Dr Natural Healing.

Caffeine is from the same family as theophylline and has shown some efficacy in treating asthma. So, very strong coffee may help, or as an alternative, stock caffeine pills.

Before our society collapses entirely, try natural remedies to see whether any of them will work for you. Teas reported to be helpful include ginger, garlic, ephedra, nettle, chamomile, and rosemary. Herbal supplements reported to have therapeutic effects include turmeric, licorice, ginger, black pepper, gingko biloba, lobelia. Other items of possible aid include coffee, honey, and vitamin D. Essential oils to consider are eucalyptus, mustard, camphor, lavender, geranium, frankincense, and cypress.

Life-Threatening Allergies/Anaphylaxis

Those Epi-pens are pretty expensive and don’t have a long shelf life, so the only people purchasing them for a collapse situation are going to be those most likely to need them. Epi-pens contain about five doses of epinephrine, information not generally shared by the manufacturer. It’s just a bit difficult to access. Numerous YouTube videos demonstrate how to do this safely. Epinephrine decreases in potency over time, but even at five years out of date, physicians say that epinephrine still has about 60% of its original potency. That may still save a life.^[4]

Common Injuries

Now, let’s look at the most common injuries and the means for caring for them. We’ll also consider what supplies would be useful to have on hand.

Minor lacerations

Over 90% of the lacerations physicians see today fall into the minor category where only the skin and subcutaneous tissue are involved, and not the muscles or tendons. Often the cause for a trip to urgent care or the emergency room today, the facilities for treating these injuries may not be available tomorrow. Decisions on how and whether to close a laceration are best made by a medical professional, who will have to make that decision based on the mode of injury and what supplies are available. You need to make sure that you can supply whatever the caregiver deems best in the situation at hand.

Derma-Bond and Steri-Strips

Derma-Bond is only available through a physician. Vet-Bond, the veterinary equivalent of Derma-Bond, can still be purchased without restriction. Both are chemically similar to superglue, but they’re less likely than the latter to cause a chemical burn. Vet-bond is desirable for closing smaller wounds on children and facial wounds on daughters and other women when minimizing scarring is really a priority. Steri-Strips, adhesive strips of tape 3-4” long and 1/10-1/2” wide, can also be used for closing some wounds. They are especially valuable for children on body parts that don’t move a lot, and for the elderly with paper-thin skin.

Skin Staples

Skin staples are best for the scalp, abdomen, and back, but they are not used over joints (too much movement) or the face (scarring). (Regarding scalp wounds, if the hair is long enough, the hair can also be braided across the laceration to close it.)

Sutures

Ideally, you will have sutures in a variety of sizes to accommodate a variety of purposes. Unfortunately, sutures for human use are only available through a licensed healthcare provider. Veterinary sutures “for training” available through Amazon are not necessarily of the quality one may desire, i.e., the needles may not be as sharp, making the procedure more painful for the patient. Sutures for “veterinary use” available through ShopMedVet are sterile and available in a wide variety of materials and sizes. Lacking the above, you may find yourself being stitched up with a common sewing needle, which is going to hurt a lot more, and silk or nylon thread (available at most fabric stores). Natural remedies: cayenne pepper powder, cinnamon powder, activated charcoal. Essential oils: lavender, thyme, geranium, cypress, myrrh, eucalyptus.

More Serious Lacerations and Serious Bleeding

For more serious lacerations and serious bleeding issues, you’ll want to have on hand some cotton gauze for stopping bleeding (combined with direct pressure, of course). Tampons have long been touted as great for stopping hemorrhaging, but keep in mind that they are for absorbing blood. They do absolutely nothing for clotting. And you might also wish to know that a University of La Plata study in 2015 showed that 85% of the sanitary napkins and pads they tested were positive for glyphosate (also known as Roundup). That’s not something you necessarily want to put into a wound. Cayenne pepper has been shown to help stop mild to moderate bleeding (and yes, it burns). QuikClot and Celox, available as crystals, powders, solutions, and in gauzes and sponges, are a little pricey, but they can be invaluable in stopping serious bleeding.

Tourniquet

If none of these treatments works, you’ll need a tourniquet. Strips of cloth and bandanas aren’t nearly as effective as a real tourniquet. The SOF Tactical Tourniquet is one option favored by the military, which consists largely of people with pretty well developed arm and leg muscles. The SWAT-T tourniquet can be used on limbs of any size, including children and the elderly. It has the advantage of being able to be used as a compression bandage or sling as well. Also in your kit should be a black permanent marker for writing on the tourniquet or on the patient the exact time the tourniquet was applied. The next caregiver (assuming there is one) needs to know how long the tourniquet has been on to render the most appropriate treatment for the situation.

Sutures

Absorbable sutures as well as non-absorbable will be desired, or else you will have to resort to a sewing needle and thread, unless you have a supply of agave cactus needles (and the attached fiber) or combat army ants. (Have those ants bite you where you need the suture to go, then detach the head from your body.) So, at the very least, get silk, nylon, and sewing needles, right?

Nosebleeds

Nosebleeds affect most people at some point in their lives. The vast majority are stopped by direct pressure. For persistent bleeders, Afrin is helpful. For true gushers, there is Quikclot for nosebleeds. It’s favored over other hemostat/gauze preparations because after the bleeding has stopped, it can be completely removed and leaves nothing behind. A little Vaseline smeared inside the nose can help reduce the frequency of nosebleeds. A little bit of gauze soaked in epinephrine is also effective. Essential oils: geranium.

Abrasions

Abrasions, even large ones, generally don’t cause much concern among the population as a whole because they aren’t deep. Most people equate deep with “serious,” not deep means “not serious.” However, that’s not quite the case. Abrasions by their nature are filled with debris, and it all has to be removed. A perineal bottle works very well for irrigating and cleaning wounds because it’s easier to control than a syringe and you can achieve pretty nice pressure with it. Tweezers and Q-tips are good for removing debris that irrigation alone can’t dislodge. You’ll also want a little topical antibiotic ointment and a bandage of the appropriate size. Essential oils: lavender, frankincense, myrrh, tea tree.

Fractures and Sprains

Fractures and sprains can be difficult to differentiate, and because the supplies needed for both are essentially the same, they will be addressed together. In a collapse situation, you probably don’t want to put a plaster cast on. After all, without power tools, how are you going to get it off safely? Ideally you will have on hand a cervical collar, finger, ankle, knee, and back braces. SAM splints are moldable splints that can be cut with ordinary scissors and are reusable. They can splint every bone in the body. Substitutions for a splint would be sticks or bark and strips of cloth, Popsicle sticks, or pillows, and duct tape. Ace bandages in a wide variety of sizes will also come in handy. Instant cold packs will help decrease swelling and pain. Essential oils for fractures: ginger, thyme, lavender, geranium, chamomile. Essential oils for sprains: ginger, nutmeg, cloves.

Muscle Strains

We’ve all experienced muscle strains to some extent. All of the usual aids we appreciate now will be appreciated later—OTC pain relievers, pain rubs, pain patches, and some essential oils. Ice may be hard to come by, so having a few instant cold packs will be a good idea. Essential oils: ginger, thyme, lavender, chamomile.

Burns

Most of us have some experience with first and second degree burns, just from being outdoors and cooking. Beyond putting the burned area under cool running water for several minutes, burn gel is used for first degree (non-blistering) burns as well as second degree (blistering) burns. Over-the-counter burn gels come with various strengths of lidocaine, with 1-2% lidocaine being the most common, but you can find it in strengths up to 4% lidocaine (brand name Alocane). And of course, aloe vera is also very beneficial. Essential oils: lavender.

Third Degree Burns

Third degree burns involve charred skin and are an entirely different matter. You’ll want to have a perineal bottle or gentle baby hair brush for removing debris like charred bits of clothing, aloe vera and/or burn gels for pain management, and topical antibiotics for infection control. For dressing the burned area, Vaseline-gauze dressings are pretty pricey. You can make your own by bringing Vaseline to a boil to sterilize it and then spreading it on a sterile piece of gauze. You can also use plastic food wrap. (The colored wrap is thicker and easier to manage.) A person with burns covering even 10% of the body is at risk of shock and dehydration. Oral rehydration salts and an enema kit may be needed, as the patient may need to be sedated and therefore unable to drink.^[5]

References

^[4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luultUD0eK0&t=1s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbpmYuixMAg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn2oinVuryw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn2rUegfexM

^[5]See article by Dr. Cynthia Koelker. https://survivalblog.com/how-to-survive-a-serious-burn-by-cynthia-j-koelker-md/

See also:

• 1 – Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 1, by A.&J. R.
• 3 – Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 3, by A.&J. R. (Active on 5/10/18)
• 4 – Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 4, by A.&J. R. (Active on 5/11/18)
• 5 – Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 5, by A.&J. R. (Active on 5/12/18)
• 6 – Bring Your Own Bandaids- Part 6, by A.&J. R. (Active on 5/13/18)

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been part two of a six part entry for Round 76 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
7. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
8. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
5. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 76 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.