Search Results for: antibiotic

JWR: Another great use for Gentian Violet is non-surgical treatment of onychocryptosis, the twenty-five cent word for ingrown toenails. I discovered this old treatment one bored night on Emergency Room call at an Indian reservation hospital, flipping through some hundred year old surgical textbook. Just paint the nail folds and nail liberally. If antibiotics available, and they weren’t when the book was written, I usually use some erythromycin. The Gentian Violet desiccates the nail fold and toughens it, treating the ingrown nail. While it’s not a 100% cure, it works well enough I still use it in my practice. I tell the patient to return when the Gentian Violet has worn off. Rarely do they need further treatment. – Dr. John in Arizona…

…an antiviral may be prescribed, but they only work against flu and not all viruses.) Using an antibiotic every time people have a cough (along with the routine antibiotic dosing of animals used for food) is what has led to some antibiotic resistant infections. http://www.cdc.gov/features/getsmart/ Of course antibiotics have their place, and we should prepare for bacterial infections, including respiratory infections, by acquiring them; however, they are not a cure-all. The often-prescribed Amoxicillin does not treat all infections, and simply dosing oneself with an antibiotic every time an illness occurs will not necessarily treat that disease. Learning how to diagnose disease, when to use antibiotics, and which antibiotics are used to treat specific bacterial infections is something that takes years of study. There are books that can be purchased that can help recognize certain symptoms, but often similar symptoms can indicate either a viral or bacterial infection. Antibiotics can also…

…double antibiotic ointment as the standard. Having said that, whichever you can get is far better than having none! Also, with regard to antibiotics and their appropriate uses, I would recommend a copy of “The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy” to keep handy with whatever antibiotics you can store. This is a small paperback “pocket reference” published annually which summarizes the clinical use of antibiotics. Much of it is more detailed than most non-medical folks would need, but the first chapter addresses common infections by affected body system, and recommends empiric (i.e., “best guess without cultures”) antibiotic choices based on the most likely involved pathogen. If you know a doctor, nurse practitioner, or hospital pharmacist, ask them if you can have their last year’s edition. We usually throw them away when we get the new one, and the bulk of the recommendations rarely changes. You may also need to get…

…a very clean room, a plan, a correct diagnosis, good assistance, and many other things. And, you still need to remember antibiotics! Antibiotics are a more reasonable pursuit. Preppers go for antibiotics sold for fish, find doctors that are ok with their license being on the line with your preps, and some try to keep their past drugs after they feel better, figuring it will help them later. The latter is a very bad idea. First, using only a portion of a prescription leaves the bacteria in your system. You could get sick again, or pass is on as stronger bug for the next person. This means that over time you get super-bugs that are very difficult to treat. The antibiotics we are using for some people now have huge problems and side effects. According to many sources antibiotics for animals are good to hook. However, this is only when…

…may actually start to run a temperature and feel lousy. One of the most common abscess forming bacteria we see nowadays is Staph aureus.  This bacterium comes in two varieties: Methicillin resistant “MRSA” and Methicillin Sensitive: “MSSA”.  The methicillin part refers to the bacteria’s character in response to a specific antibiotic. MRSA is the dreaded acronym everyone hears about from football teams to surgery suites. Although it is a bacterium you may associate with abscess, there are many more bacteria that can cause the furuncle or boil or “risin” (my personal favorite) that you see on your body. Whether the bug is MRSA or not, the treatment is the same and that is to open up the pus pocket, irrigate it out and then decide, do I really need antibiotics for this or not? Most of us will be hoarding our precious antibiotic supply in a SHTF situation and there…