Our series on preparedness continues. We have looked at records, did an extensive (and ongoing) examination of power, and now we move on to medicine. When people think of medicine, they think of the sexy parts: usually trauma. Yeah, using a ballpoint pen and a pocketknife to open an airway in someone’s throat makes for great television, but isn’t really something you are going to have to do.
Trauma is a surgical emergency. The only thing I can recommend with trauma, beyond first aid is stabilize the injury and get the victim to a location that is equipped and able to perform the necessary surgery. If things have gotten to the point where that isn’t possible, the victim probably isn’t going to make it. To stabilize the patient, it helps to have a decent first aid kit like this one. Here are the basics of how to treat a gunshot wound from a talk I gave at the 2021 Florida Blogshoot. There are all sorts of people that will tell you to carry IV equipment, BVMs, and all of that, but frankly, you don’t need that stuff. There are plenty of studies that bear that out.
I have seen medical bloggers insist that you need to stock a room full of sterile, disposable dressings. Hogwash. All you need to do is cut up some old sheets, put them in a pot of boiling water for ten minutes, wring them out with hands freshly washed in clean, potable water, then dry them in the clothes dryer. Now you have clean bandages.
No, the important medicine that you need are the less sexy parts of the medical profession. The most important thing that you can have from a medical standpoint is knowledge. Start with a first aid and CPR course, something like First Responder or EMT. You can get an EMT certification in as little as two months for the cost of a single handgun. The more you know, the more you know, and one thing that you learn may be the difference between saving a life and not.
What medicines do we need? First, recognize that the biggest killers of people in a SHTF scenario will be contaminated food/water, and sepsis. Having things on hand to deal with those things will go a long way. So here we are with a list of medicines:
- Iodine (Betadine will do)- wound disinfectant
- Soap- cleanliness prevents infection
- Rubbing alcohol- disinfectant
- Vinegar- it can be used as a disinfectant
- Loperamide (Immodium)- diarrhea is a huge killer, as it can cause severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalances
- ondansetron (which is a prescription drug) and meclizine (over the counter) to prevent vomiting. They are dangerous for the same reasons that diarrhea is.
- Acetaminophen (for fevers)
- Ibuprofen (for inflammation)
- hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (for parasitic infections)
- if possible, grow an aloe plant. Aloe is useful for burns and as a powerful laxative. If you can’t have an aloe plant, you need some burn ointments and a laxative.
- hydrocortisone cream for inflammatory rashes
- diphenhydramine, both pills and ointment
- triple antibiotic cream
- the following five broad spectrum antibiotics: augmentin, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, metronidazole, azithromicin
- Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed)
- Aspirin
- Famitodine
- Clotrimazole cream
Those will handle most of what you will need in a SHTF situation.
If you want to read more in my preparedness series, click here for the complete library of posts on the subject. You can also refer to the training materials page.
24 Comments
Mike Hendrix · June 27, 2024 at 10:30 am
•hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (for
>parasitic infectionshorses)FIFY, buddy. 😉
Gryphon · June 27, 2024 at 6:03 pm
Mike- Ivermectin is an Approved-for-Humans Drug that works on Horses, too. My Vet (a Horse Specialist) long ago told me that over 90% of Drugs for general things in Horses are what’s used for People. And “Veterinary Drugs” are all “FDA Approved” and have a NDC Number (unique Drug Identification Code) If you go looking for “Pet Meds” online, don’t accept anything without an NDC Number.
Borepatch · June 27, 2024 at 10:50 am
Divemedic, that was a great presentation you gave at the blogshoot. I encourage everyone to click through and read your writeup.
Divemedic · June 27, 2024 at 11:27 am
I appreciate the kind words
Lori G · June 27, 2024 at 11:02 am
This is really handy just for farm living, thanks!
Rick · June 27, 2024 at 11:19 am
My medical knowledge rises to antiquated EMT 2 cert and recent Stop The Bleed course. It is woefully short.
My kit contains the aforementioned except prescribed Rx.
Rick · June 27, 2024 at 11:26 am
Twice I have administered CPR in real life. Both were well within my expertise at that time. I was an emotional wreck afterwards. I had just saved a life. Even now, many years later, I get emotional about it.
Thank God for nurses. I know of the gallows humor. I don’t know how you keep it together.
IcyReaper · June 27, 2024 at 12:04 pm
My thanks and gratitude also. I for one am loving this series, lots of very good info and discussion. I watch all these folks talking also about how you have to keep a ER level of stuff and have 4 TQ’s on you. But if a collapse happens there wont be any hospitals or getting to them since most are in cities is a death sentence so unless you have a trained med person and if you are shot and need a TQ or multiple TQ’s, you are probably dead already.
Whats your take on diarrhea treatment. I keep seeing let it run for a couple days to try and clear out whats causing it, keep hydrated and if it keeps going then use meds?
Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 6:22 pm
Diarrhea that continues beyond 24 hrs is a severe problem.
The first day should clear out the problem.
Dehydration longer than that without access to IV rehydration = Acute Kidney Injury, potentially followed by death.
Worse too if the patient is 60.
Most Turd World diseases killed (and still do) people by profound intractable trots and squirts, leading to dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and then multi-system organ failure or cardiac arrest.
Look at sites like WebMD or Mayo Clinic. Then remember they’re offering advice based on the presumption of access to first-world medical treatment.
Then look at docs like Alton or Forgey, who are giving advice based on you not having that access, because grid-down or wilderness location.
And stock up on Immodium OTC, and antibiotics, and if you can get your hands on it, Zofran ODT sublingually-administered tablets to curb vomiting.
If the patient’s pulse is >100, they aren’t hydrated.
Vomiting? No IV?
BTW, the French figured out you can rehydrate someone by shoving a large tube up their tailpipe, and pouring clean (not sterile) tap water upstream.
Sucking in water is what your large intestine does, 24/7/365. What isn’t water becomes poop. You still have to let that out.
You may not be able to get an IV (like if there are no arms or legs, like happened to French troops in Iraq after an IED explosion), but you can almost always do a water enema.
Also, you don’t need medical equipment. A funnel and clean tubing – even a garden hose – will suffice. And that access point nor what you put into it need not be sterile, to any degree. Just clean. (Think about what’s coming the other way.)
Leave it to the French to go there.
If it’s stupid, but it works, it isn’t stupid.
Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 6:24 pm
html edited one line there, because of less than/greater than symbology. It should have read:
“less than 16 or greater than 60″
WallPhone · June 27, 2024 at 10:05 pm
Ondansetron is truly a wonder drug. Used some left over from a prescription to treat migraine nausea and the difference was incredible.
From what I understand, its medical safety is about the same as over the counter Benadryl, but unfortunately it’s available by prescription only because the nausea it treats could be an indication of a more serious medical problem that ought to be diagnosed.
Loperamide is something to keep a close eye on, it’s literally an opioid that suppresses digestive activity. People indeed abuse the drug, making procurement in things other than blister packs difficult, and it could very easily follow pseudoephedrine’s availability, or become by prescription only.
D · June 28, 2024 at 3:32 pm
You brought up Benadryl. I was going to suggest that it should be on the list.
It’s the gold standard for treating allergic reactions.
Ever been tromping through the brush or mowing and disturb a hornet’s nest?
About 15 years ago I got nailed by hornets. One of them managed to sting me in the skin directly above my right jugular while I was running like hell.
I got to the house and was talking to my wife…and suddenly I noticed the webbing between my fingers and toes were itchy…like I suddenly had athlete’s foot.
While my brain was processing it, I continued talking with my wife…and then my lips started tingling. I stopped and said “Oh shit. Get the Benadryl!”
She ran off and came back about a minute later with a bottle and I was already starting to puff up and my tongue wouldn’t cooperate.
I slammed a good amount from the bottle and within 5 minutes of the incident I was tripodding on the floor, struggling to breathe and hives everywhere. It leveled off around 10 minutes according to my wife and maybe 30 minutes later I was breathing easier and decided to take a 15 hour nap.
I’ve been stung plenty of times afterwards by yellow jackets and honey bees with no effect….but I’m glad I had that damned bottle of Benadryl when I needed it.
Divemedic · June 28, 2024 at 5:06 pm
Diphenhydramine is sometimes sold under the brand name of Benadryl
Dan D. · June 27, 2024 at 1:28 pm
100% on augmentin and cipro. Excellent post without being overwhelming.
Bear in Indy · June 27, 2024 at 3:38 pm
Thank you.
Bear in Indy
Aesop · June 27, 2024 at 6:04 pm
The problem isn’t that you don’t have a surgical suite, or IV supplies.
Because anybody who needs that during the Zombpocalypse is simply going to die.
Most people only have what they need – for one day, or even one incident.
The problem there is that a treatable gunshot wound – or even simple tool trauma – is going to take 2-4 weeks to heal.
One course of antibiotics – 7-14 days’ worth – is great, until you need a second one.
Or you only had enough for a couple of days to begin with.
We, in a smaller than average but busier than average trauma ER, get two 6’x8’x2′ trauma supply carts, 2 similar-sized linen carts, and an 8’x10′ supply room restocked every single day, just with the simple stuff.
The exact things you’re going to go through twenty of a day for even the simplest problems.
That’s not counting the 5 times a day the pharmacy brings us a full restock of most-used meds.
And if you’re going to go Civil War medicine, with Civil War solutions, know up front that
a) Somebody’s going to be washing, boiling, and scrubbing every damned thing three times a day, 24/7, including your patient’s back end, and if you lapse in that even the slightest,
b) you’re going to have Civil War outcomes and Civil War casualty rates.
You know, in the war where the number who died of wounds or illness was frequently as much or more than the number of those killed outright.
You don’t need a trauma dressing.
You need 2-4 weeks worth of trauma dressings, for a single wound, even one from an axe, machete, or farming implement. With at least 1-2 dressing changes/day. For one wound.
Otherwise you’re just killing your patients slowly, and first aid turns into last aid.
You get one chance to do grid-down medicine correctly.
Screw it up, and Darwin wins.
Look up actuarial tables of death from 1800-1900, and get back to me.
[Hint: It was between 33.9 (1800) and 46.3 years (1900) for U.S. males. So if you’re 47 or up, you’re probably not going to make it, just going by averages.]
That’s what a grid-down world looks like.
And in such a case, outside of choking or near drowning, CPR is largely a complete waste of time.
Learn it for now, sure. You might save a life.
The minute You’re On Your Own, forget about it.
I say again, forget about it.
>90% of CPR “saves” now are merely (hugely expensive) salvage for eventual organ donation, and to give the family time to wrap their heads around the fact that their loved one is already dead, and never coming home, by any measure that matters.
You could look it up.
If nobody ever told you this, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to anyone.
Without cardiac drugs and an ICU. you’re spinning your wheels for about 9% of the remaining 10% of cases.
And if anything, I’m soft-soaping those numbers.
It’s probably even worse.
You want a lesson on CPR, watch the scene in Blackhawk Down where Cpl. Jamie Smith goes into traumatic full arrest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqyFi_l1lZs
Or the scene in The Grey where Liam Neeson finds Lewenden with a penetrating abdominal wound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2FB8f_J_U8
That’s every time, grid-down, except for a fraction of 1% percentage of all cases.
You do you, when the time comes.
But do it with your eyes wide open.
Wrapping your head around that is going to be orders of magnitude harder than learning how to put on bandages.
Lori G · June 27, 2024 at 6:06 pm
A farm recipe for constipation is dark maple syrup; we have a gallon of it on hand and mark it ‘laxative.’ It is well known among maple syrupers.
We also make a tincture of vodka and Hawthorn berries for high blood pressure; hawthorn berries grow wild where we live and it really works to lower blood pressure. A few quick grinds of the berries and set them in 80 proof vodka or higher; strain out the berries and take a shot every night.
Qualitarian · June 27, 2024 at 10:37 pm
I’ve been temporarily crippled by three things: jock itch, hemorrhoids, and piriformis flares. If any of these struck at a time when it was critical to act, I’d be screwed and by extension, my family would probably be screwed as well. In addition to the standard first aid supplies, I’ve added in plenty of athlete’s foot medicine in cream and powder spray formats to handle crotch rot (the cold powder spray feels heavenly when one really needs it, and as I live in Florida somebody’s likely to need it), a variety of hemorrhoid treatments, and a portable/rechargeable TENS unit to unclamp knotted muscles.
Out West · June 28, 2024 at 8:03 am
Thanks for sharing this valuable information, very much appreciated.
IcyReaper · June 28, 2024 at 11:01 am
Thanks to both of you. To the community here, since some of these meds are prescripts only. Is there a place/site that’s trust worthy to order from if our local doctors wont go along?
Divemedic · June 28, 2024 at 11:14 am
You can try going to Mexico, where those drugs can be bought over the counter.
Dan D. · June 28, 2024 at 11:36 am
I use AllDayChemist.com – 7 years, now.
AC47Spooky · June 28, 2024 at 12:35 pm
Does you have recommendations on a good source for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin?
AC47Spooky · June 28, 2024 at 5:29 pm
“Do you …” 😀