Category: First Aid/Medical

Two Letters Re: Practice Night Hiking to Get Ready to Bug Out to Your Retreat

Mr. Rawles: Regarding Fitzy’s letter “Practice Night Hiking to Get Ready to Bug Out to Your Retreat”, he mentioned that he was worried about his dog’s being cut by broken glass on roads and trails. Here is a product that folks might want to keep in hand if they travel with a dog: Musher’s Secret. – Paulette Sir: Regarding the letter “Practice Night Hiking to Get Ready to Bug Out to Your Retreat”I would not recommend the use of Vaseline to prevent chafing. However, if you look online or drop in at a bike shop there are products specifically made …


Medicinal Herb Gardening by Mrs. Celena J.

Earlier this year, I received a free packet of Echinacea (Purple Coneflower) from wintersown.org (by the way, if you’re into gardening check them out; they’ll send you 10 packets of free seeds for the cost of a SASE).  When I saw the seed packet, I remembered that Echinacea is used to reduce the duration of colds and flu.  I began seriously considering and researching medicinal plant gardening.  Having such a garden would be so useful in surviving numerous catastrophes, not to mention the possible money saver it could be during a recession that’s going to last who-knows-how-long!  Of course, not …


Psychological Preparedness for TEOTWAWKI

We do not know what the future brings, though in the survival community there is no shortage of speculative events that may occur. This article is a brief primer on psychological techniques that can be used in a TEOTWAWKI scenario to help prepare for and stave off psychological fatigue until a time at which you can properly cope with the situation at hand. Also, it provides some coping techniques to help get you back on track after all has settled. Why are we so driven to preparation? The answer is death. It is inevitable, and we must all face it …


Three Letters Re: A Doctor’s Thoughts on Antibiotics, Expiration Dates, and TEOTWAWKI

Hello- I must first thank you, Mr. Rawles, for your advice. I truly believe it will one day save my life. Also, the amount of knowledge I have gained from all of the contributors to SurvivalBlog is astounding! My profession is in the animal industry, so I am familiar with antibiotics and other meds. At work, it is many times frustrating to pull out dosage instructions from a bottle of medicine, only to find that they’re all written for humans. Especially the antibiotics! I order only from veterinary pharmacies, but these drugs are manufactured and labeled for human consumption. Now …


Practical and Affordable Food and Medicine Rotation

Jim, In addition to stores of long-term food in #10 cans (Mountain House and cans from the LDS cannery), I keep about a six month supply of “grocery store” canned and boxed food and a multiple-year supply of OTC medicines. A lot of this stuff goes unused because I’m pretty bad at rotating and while they are items we like, we just don’t eat them that often. Every year around the holidays I box up a ton of stuff and donate it to the food bank. The tax deduction I take is the “fair market value” (i.e., current grocery store …


Wound Suturing, Gluing, and Bandaging, by David in Israel

James Having suture equipment even if you don’t have the skills to use it is useful since you can hopefully find a veterinarian, doctor, nurse, PA, or Dentist qualified to use them. Having your own sterile medical equipment for the medical professionals you find is still a common bit of advice for people planning to visit third world countries. If there is an injury requiring suture and you are not qualified especially in the highly enervated regions where suture can cause serious nerve damage and local paralysis of the body such as the hands and face there is a better …


Seven Letters Re: A Doctor’s Thoughts on Antibiotics, Expiration Dates, and TEOTWAWKI

Hi Jim, In response to the letters sent to you regarding my article, the FORTE version of the antibiotics described would be appropriate for full-grown men and all but the most petite women (less than, say, 100 pounds or so). Children would be best served with the 250mg fish antibiotic dose. Frequency of these medications is from 2-4 times a day, depending on the individual drug. The risk of under-dosage would be suboptimal progress in healing. Overdosage often manifests itself as diarrhea.. Treatment length is usually from 5-10 days. A good internet drug index can be found at rxlist.com. If …


Home Pharmacy Preparedness, by Michael V.

Don’t plan on your pharmacy being open or not looted after Day 1 after the SHTF.  Just like most cops have reported on this site that they will leave their posts to protect their families, pharmacists will do the same.  Most chain pharmacists have no loyalty other than a paycheck, so unlike “One Second After” it would be unlikely that a chain pharmacist would show up to work and risk their life after the SHTF.  Independent pharmacists who own their own store, and have their fortune tied to it have a better chance of being there, armed, with a more …


Two Letters Re: A Doctor’s Thoughts on Antibiotics, Expiration Dates, and TEOTWAWKI

JWR, Regarding the recent post on antibiotics, I would love to hear the good doctor or someone else with relevant knowledge describe how to determine dosage (I’m assuming based on weight), as well as any risks associated with over- or under-dosage. Thanks! – E.W. Sir; I’m a relatively new reader of your excellent site and have learned an incredible amount of valuable information from you and my fellow readers. Thank you for such a wonderful service. I read Dr. Bone’s submission with great interest since the medical issues of a SHTF scenario are a great concern of mine. I’m knowledgeable …


A Doctor’s Thoughts on Antibiotics, Expiration Dates, and TEOTWAWKI, by Dr. Bones

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As a recently-retired physician who is married to a nurse-midwife, my preparedness group looks to us as the post-TEOTWAWKI hospital and medical staff. Medical progress has been exponential and even just the last decade of scientific breakthroughs can equal a century of improvement in medical treatments, surgical techniques and pharmaceuticals. However, in the years (months?) ahead, the crumbling of the infrastructure and devolution of society in general will very likely throw us back to a medical system that existed in the 19th Century. Let’s take an example: When the U.S. was a young nation, the average woman could expect to …


Low Cost Preparedness, by J.E.

We, in the U.S.A., live on a knife edge.  Most of us take our life of ease (compared to the rest of the world) for granted, The ones who don’t are preppers and survivalists.  The television and radio give almost instant notification of the latest earthquake, hurricane, fire, or whatever and that makes many of us casual about disaster.  We get used to hearing about it so we ignore it beyond a “Gee that’s too bad!”  After all, disasters only happen to “the other guy.” Prepping for the individual and the way we go about it is different in almost …


Waking Up and Getting Prepared, by Matthew G.

I live a very average suburban life similar to many people across the country. Commute to work, office job, suburban home with wife and kids. It’s easy to forget how fragile this lifestyle is and how little it takes to remove all the things you come to depend on. Recently I had an afternoon that showed me just how easy these conveniences can go away and the difference a little preparedness can make. After picking up my daughter from day care I drove home to find myself locked out of the house. We were having new keys made and I …


Letter Re: Triage Systems for Crisis: Making the Hard Calls in Life or Death Situations

Mr. Editor: The first part of the Kathy S. article was well done in describing potential scenarios and the medical problems with triage.  I would take issue with her triage system and her method for establishing the categories.  The standard civilian approach is that of Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS).  It has been used and taught in the military. In a mass casualty situation, it requires establishing who has the best chance of survival within the constraints of time, manpower and materials.  I am a retired Army physician (non-surgeon) who has been an ATLS instructor for many years prior to …


Triage Systems for Crisis: Making the Hard Calls in Life or Death Situations, by Kathy S.

While I have been searching the web for preparedness information I have yet to see much mentioned of the most emotionally and physically draining process of triaging the casualties produced during a crisis event.  While we are busy with our stockpiling of food and materials, weapons, and seeds, we seem to have left out some of the really horrific tasks we may be called upon to perform. Even if we are fully engaged as “preppers” we don’t take time to understand the implications that illness and injuries will have upon our lives in drastic times. Most of the general population …


Is Modern Society Doomed to Collapse? Understanding the Complexity Trap

I’ve often written in SurvivalBlog about the over-dependence of modern societies on technology. Our level of dependence on high technology is large, and steadily growing. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle summed up over-dependence on technology in their novel Lucifer’s Hammer: “Whole nations depends on technology. Stop the wheels for two days and you’d have riots. No place is more than two meals from a revolution. Think of Los Angeles or New York with no electricity. Or a longer view, fertilizer plants stop. Or a longer view yet, no new technology for ten years. What happens to our standard of living? …