Category: First Aid/Medical

Letter Re: Staple Foods Storage By The Numbers

JWR- Dr. Ted is incorrect. "Dropping below 15% protein risks Kwashiorkor – it’s the reason why those starving kids in the television commercials have fat bellies – lack of protein actually causes more fat to be deposited!" More fat is not deposited. [A swollen belly in these cases is a symptom of] edema (fluid) that collects in the abdomen or feet. It comes from the capillaries when there is a lack of protein in the diet and the liver cannot produce enough albumin. Thus the blood is hypo-osmotic and fluid is lost into the peritoneum, also called third-spacing. – J.W.M.


Letter Re: The Occupy Protests as an Illustration of Refugee Camp Living

JWR,   I found this article interesting: Protesters Coming Down With the “Zuccotti Lung”. Park conditions put demonstrators at risk for variety of sicknesses, officials say. The weather and conditions at the “Occupy” protests are likely a microcosm of a post-Crunch refugee camp, along with the attendant diseases and problems associated with lots of people living close together in raw weather.   I think this should give pause to those who believe they can simply pack up and head out into the local woodlot and survive a Crunch-type event. You may leave home healthy, but inevitable contact with other folks will …


Letter Re: Uses for Colloidal Silver

Sir: I have seen a lot of things online about colloidal silver being an option to protect yourself from the barium aerosol chemtrails being sprayed over my city. I don’t know how I feel about the idea of inhaling silver particles into my lungs. Do you have an opinion on this subject? Have you used a colloidal silver inhaler system yourself? I trust your advice and I await your response. Thank you, – Diana X. JWR Replies: First, I must mention that I’ve concluded that chemtrails are an elaborate myth. (An example of Urban Folklore that has been debunked.) The …


Dealing With Ankle Injuries in TEOTWAWKI, by Dr. Bob

The ankle is a frequently injured joint currently with the grid up and will be even more often with the grid down.  Ankles are easily turned, or rolled, with uneven ground, curbs, trees, rocks, etc.  Walking in general and walking in rough terrain are assumed to be more likely in TEOTWAWKI situations.  Almost everyone has had an ankle sprain in their lives, and many people have actually “broken” their ankles.  There will be no local doctor’s office and certainly no X-ray availability without a grid, so how do you take care of an ankle injury and how do you know …


Preventing and Surviving Rape in TEOTWAWKI, by Dr. Bob

This is not a happy topic.  At an e-mailer’s request and already on my mind, we will review some cold hard facts about a very uncomfortable subject matter.  Nearly every post-collapse movie or book that is produced will touch on the reality that criminals resort quickly to raping people.  It’s just what they do…that is the reality. It can bee seen in fictional dystopian movies: The Road Warrior, The Book of Eli (one of my favorites), A Clockwork Orange (one of the most disturbing rape scenes), and others reference the increase in rapes with the breakdown of society.  This is also …


Family Planning WTSHTF, by N.S.

Everyone wants to be able to take care of the family When The Schumer Hits The Fan (WTSHTF).  We have all read dozens of articles about how to garden, store food, keep seeds, protect our homes, and generally go about the living of life day-to-day.  We’ve heard the mantra: Life after the TSHTF is not for the faint of heart, nor the easily-grossed-out.  We’ve also seen a few that go into detail on how to prepare medically for disaster.  While all of us will be working hard to provide for our families and keep them safe, we also need to …


Vision Preps for Disasters, by Josh D. in Georgia

As anyone who makes preparations for the survival of themselves and their family knows the number of things you have to take into account when planning is truly vast and can be overwhelming at times. Food storage, reusable resources, home defense, and do-it-yourself medical care are just a few of the things that must be researched, prepared, and enacted to ensure that you are safe and ready for whatever may come. The number of articles giving advice and urging action are equally numerous throughout dozens of blogs, web sites and books. Within all of this however I have seen almost …


Letter Re: Avoiding Vitamin Deficiency Illnesses in Societal Collapse

Dear James Wesley, In regard to intake of Vitamin C, many people overlook sweet and hot peppers [as natural sources]. Red sweet peppers have the highest amount of C that is found in vegetable versus citrus fruit. Red peppers have more than green peppers. It seems that freeze drying or dehydrating does not substantially degrade the level of C in the vegetables.  Other good sources in vegetables are broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, dark leafy greens and cabbage and sauerkraut. The last two vegetables were very important to Northern European people who had no easy access to citrus fruits. I’m talking …


Letter Re: Avoiding Vitamin Deficiency Illnesses in Societal Collapse

Dear Jim: Recently, while doing some genealogy research, I discovered that my great aunt died at age 22 in Sunderland, England.  She had married in 1906 and died in 1907.  We all assumed it was childbirth related.  Not so.  The death certificate says:  “Scurvy septicaemia”.  This is certainly not anything I have heard of before.  I did some reading and found that Scurvy is is a lack of Vitamin C with symptoms of weakness, spongy and bleeding gums, and hemorrhages under the skin.  As scurvy advances, there can be open wounds filled with pus, loss of teeth, jaundice, fever, neuropathy …


TB Review for TEOTW, by Dr. Bob

OB?  Not bad if you need one.  CB?  Good times on the road.  PB?  Quite tasty–with or without J.  BB?  Good training gun for kids to start with.  TB?  No thanks.  Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  The disease is poorly understood in the US due to rare infections until the last 20 years or so, TB went nuts here and peaked in 1992.  New York City was in some areas more than three times the national average for infections per 100,000 population.  There were many reasons listed for this spike, but the two biggest were immigration and AIDS. …


Environmental Emergencies, by K.G. EMT-P

One of the most often overlooked and underestimated issues regarding first aid are environmental related injuries.  In the event that ambulance services and advanced medical personnel are unavailable, there are measures that a person can take to alleviate symptoms, prevent organ damage, and possibly save a life.  From my own personal experience as a paramedic, I have found that these emergencies are usually unexpected even in people who are in relatively good medical condition. Environmental injuries are problems we don’t usually encounter on a regular basis in our daily lives.  While our bodies can usually compensate for extreme environment exposure, …


The Home Medical Kit Revisited, by Dr. Bob

Medical supplies are an essential part of survival and planning can really save you some headaches. You cannot have too much gauze nor too many Band-Aids. Seriously, if you have the room then keep buying them. Sterile gauze is worth having a small amount of, and non-sterile a much larger amount of. band-Aids of all shapes are recommended, I really like the Nextcare tattoo type because they stick so well and help with blister protection as well as all sorts of small cuts. I am not really a big band-Aid person as I like blood and scars, but to each his …


Odds And Ends That You Won’t Want To Be Without, by Sonny Jim

I believe in having all the “big” things, to prepare for the possible breakdown of civil society.   I have a large home outside of a small mid-west town, and expect 12 people to arrive to hunker down, if things do fall apart.  I need to be able to feed and supply of them, perhaps for years. So I have 1,200 gallons of Kerosene.  This is intended for heating the home for 3 winters, and I have 3 Kerosene heaters to do the job.  The Kerosene is stored in in 3 large 330 gallon plastic totes, half buried in my back …


Two Letters Re: Skip Watching The Movie “Contagion”

  Dear Mr. Rawles, I too went and saw “Contagion” with my wife.  It has been interesting to read the various posts about this film, but again I have a different take.  The photography was good, the cast excellent, the script okay, the pro-government and big pharma propaganda was outstanding!  What we came away with was the understanding that the CDC can solve anything (except AIDS of course) and the big pharma can then come to rescue at any time. Yes the movie did a good job portraying would probably happen during this type of event in terms of clearing …


Letter Re: Anthrax Review for TEOTW

Dear Mr. Rawles,  I have just one brief addition to Dr. Bob’s excellent synopsis of the dangers of anthrax regarding treatment/prevention with antibiotics. First, I must commend Dr. Bob on all of his important advice, and for his courage to offer a much needed service (the prescribing of antibiotics in advance of need) in this highly litigious society.   Understanding that in TEOTWAWKI our current risk:benefit analysis will be drastically changed, and short-course antibiotic therapy may be all that is available to us, I felt compelled to mention the current CDC recommendations regarding duration of therapy. Antibiotic use in inhaled …