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I try to keep a stockpile of insulin on hand, but it only has a 1-1.5 year duration, so it's hard to keep very much around.

I have problems keeping common medications stocked. Despite my best intentions, things like flu/cold medicines, aspirin, diarrhea medications, etc. all seem to expire in 1-3 years and I haven't found a good system for keeping track of them. I like to have these things on hand, but don't use them very much - out of sight, out of mind, out of date.

Ideally, I'd like to check my disaster supplies once annually (maybe I should pick a date?) and replace things at that time. Realistically, I do "ok" keeping track of food/water/gas replacement, but the medications seem to get forgotten.
 
I don't go out and buy medicine to just put on the shelf and wait for the sky to fall.

But from High School football and what not. I have a lot of prescribe medications from knee injury's and rotor cuff injury's in a cabinet. Even though many are expired from 1-4+ years. They still do the trick!

Although I do buy the value packs at Costco for Ibuprofen (pain killer) and Excedrin (Hang Over). Also a good supply of cough drops and allergy medicine and Hydrogen Proxcide (great for cuts), Heart burn tablets. Things I use pretty occasionally or in big quantities during part of the year.
 
I talked with my doctor about getting some prescriptions for at home, she wrote me 3 prescriptions for some anti's, not a whole lot just enough for 1 person 4 weeks. Easy and pretty cheap too.
 
I talked with my doctor about getting some prescriptions for at home, she wrote me 3 prescriptions for some anti's, not a whole lot just enough for 1 person 4 weeks. Easy and pretty cheap too.


We do that in or over the water survival kits.. http://www.travelmedmd.com/safeway is who I use I even got a pre loaded morphine injection for my kit. And a ton of other stuff like sutures, antibiotics multiple kinds, pain killers etc.

To get narco stuff like the injection you have to actually see the doc and present the kit you are building show proof of travel over hostile terrain very cheap for the consultation about $50.00.

The prescriptions are valid for a year but the expire is 2 to 3 on most and I replace my stuff annually. Put the Old in medical cabinet when it expires take it to pharmacy for disposal...
 
You can get anti biotics at pet stores with no prescription, they are the same ones humans use and much cheaper than a prescription. I believe the Army does this when in foreign nations, when they have to.
 
You can get anti biotics at pet stores with no prescription, they are the same ones humans use and much cheaper than a prescription. I believe the Army does this when in foreign nations, when they have to.


Wow...Thanks fromotoc

When I do a lot of travel on airlines I get reoccurring sinus infections and have to take 1000mg dose for 5 days of Cipro to cure it with the dr visit $90.00+ and the prescript almost $80+ I find <broken link removed> wow 100 pills for $23.00 @ 500 mg ea that 10 pills over 5 days that's $2.30 way better then a 200.00 dr bill...

I also take Doxycycline for malaria protection when traveling in prone areas 1 bid = 100 pills is over $90.00 + $40.00 - $90.00 for A DR Visit it's 20.00 for fish wow....

Also Cipro treats anthrax and other warfare stuff..

Doing some research I am finding that the fish stuff is same quality as human stuff made by same manufactures.
 
Holy cow I have never seen those aqua-meds before. I know normal vet supply you can't do that. What a great trick. Do some homework to make sure it's actually effective - it may be compounded differently for water solubility and it may not be compounded so that it is absorbed through the human GI tract (this is a guess; I don't know for sure but it is a possible pitfall). The buzzword here is "bioavailability" - it needs to be "bio-available" to humans orally - so research that before counting on it in a crisis.

To lengthen storage, keep items refrigerated. Since you travel so much, just ask a doctor at your next visit for a stack of the common things so you can have on hand. Any doctor will do this for you.

Something I really like to keep at home is Lidocaine. It is a nice topical anesthetic and you can use it to suture your own wounds, family, or pets/animals. Dramatically cuts down on the need to go to the ER if you have some basic medical skills.

Another tip - now that syrup of ipecac is banned, if you need an emergency emetic, use Hydrogen Peroxide. Works on dogs, humans, etc.

ContractPilot, I read another post of yours about your job and where you fly. Consider having a week's supply of something like Cipro on you for each person on an aircraft when flying over remote water routes or jungle routes. Reason: let's say you need to spend a week in a raft and you have plenty of water and food. You can still be dead from microbial infection if you are cut up badly in a crash and then end up in the water. The multiple cuts can let microbial infection set-up in multiple spots and septicemia can kill a person in warm climates in no time. A broken bone you can grit out for a week - blood poisoning you can not. Anytime someone is seriously "off the grid," having a powerful anti-biotic course on hand can be the difference if something goes wrong. Tip: don't just carry it, but write in permanent marker on the bottle the therapeutic daily dosage for and adult and a child. Know what it is so you don't have to guess.

Another trick is that most countries use their pharmacists very differently than we do. They have dispensary privileges and can sell most antibiotics and many mild pain killers. Next time you are abroad, stop in a pharmacy and pick up a few things. The retail prices will usually be comparable to US co-pays, so it's not usually expensive.

Pharmacists in this country are horribly under-utilized - they should be able to do the same and it would reduce a lot of pressure on our health care system. They are not "techs" - they have serious doctoral education in biomedical pharmacology. Just having them fill prescriptions is a terrible, terribly waste in my opinion.

Sorry, rant off.
 
Pharmacists in this country are horribly under-utilized - they should be able to do the same and it would reduce a lot of pressure on our health care system. They are not "techs" - they have serious doctoral education in biomedical pharmacology. Just having them fill prescriptions is a terrible, terribly waste in my opinion.

Sorry, rant off.

I agree... I been to pharmacists over seas it's wonderful tell them whats wrong they look at the problem and give you a prescript it's that easy.

I drank some pumpkin beer in Bangor Main the next day during my 18 hours flight I ended up with major hives & rash.. When I landed went to the pharmacists on Santa Maria Island, Azores he gave me a prescript 1 for pain & sleep, 1 for non drowsy antihistamine... total $10.00 took the antihistamine 3-4 hours later hives were gone. I went and tanked the pharmacists. I never needed the pain killers so they went in my survival kit...

But an ER visit there is only $25.00 also free if your a citizen..
 
Yea, use at your own risk, I have used the fish amoxicillin before and it worked and I didn't get sick, but others online report getting sick while using them. I have a bunch just in case of a SHTF type scenario, I figure using them and possibly getting sick is better than dying.

Fish/Animals have a higher metabolic rate then humans, so take a very small amount (like 1/6 of a pill) at first, and use accordingly.
 
Yea, use at your own risk, I have used the fish amoxicillin before and it worked and I didn't get sick, but others online report getting sick while using them.

I will try to spend some time this week looking into the pharmacology of it in the literature. I have some training in this field, but no handy access to the veterinary medical literature. But maybe I can figure it out (or find someone who already has!).

When I landed went to the pharmacists on Santa Maria Island, Azores he gave me a prescript 1 for pain & sleep, 1 for non drowsy antihistamine.

The funny thing is my 1st experience with this fact was years ago, and in the same country as you but quite a few hundred miles east. I was touristing and was in a bating suit scrambling on some razor-like rocks to get some creative pictures of the yachts and other craft in the harbor at Estoril, Portugal. I slipped and fell down a "blow hole" in the rocks at low tide, and into a mess of old fisherman's nets and hooks. Oh my god, I was sliced and diced. Amazingly, the pharmacist fixed me up with everything I needed to not even require a doctor's visit, just like you. Now if I'd been smart enough to go straight to the camera shop and have them dissect my camera and get the bits of Atlantic seawater out of it, I could have also saved that lovely Canon, but I waited too long to get the aid for that...

Er - wait a minute. 18 hours from Bangor to the Azores? What the devil were you flying, an L10 Electra with Amelia Earhart or something?
 
I am looking to get some Cipro. (good antibiotic) Early tests show that is has a shelf life of 10 years or more. The animal grade stuff is identical to the human, just labeled differently. I am still looking for a place to get it. There are places on line, however you have no idea what type of sugar pills you are getting!! I want to get some, just don't know where to go.
 
There was a huge amount of waste (due to expiration) at our house. Eliminated that problem a couple of years ago by building a medicine rotation rack similar to the canned foods rotation racks. We determined which medications we wanted to stock, how much, and in what form (boxes, bottles, etc.). Built the racks to fit those products. The currently used medication is kept upstairs; the extra is kept in the racks downstairs. When an item is removed from the pantry it is written down and replaced on the next trip to the store. Also began taking a week or two meds out of each new bottle anytime a prescription was refilled. Have built it up to a an extra 60 to 90 day supply of important ones (and still building). I am rotating them just as with the non-prescription meds.

If you are stocking antibiotics make sure you know how to determine which one is used for which problem. Most people do not have that knowledge or ability.
 
Just be careful. A few points:
A dirty little secret in medicine is medications can be viable pretty long after expiration dates, but only if stored correctly in cool dry conditions. Some medications cannot be stored in light or out of the original packaging. Some are unstable after a certain point, but it is difficult to tell exactly when, thus the conservative expiration dates. Misuse of antibiotics has resulted in superbugs like MRSA -- better be sure you know what you are taking, if it is the correct antibiotic/medication for that condition, and for how long you should take it -- for the common good and your own health. Be careful of overseas pharmacies; I think drugs are horribly overpriced in the US. Once on a trip in Mexico I got a toe infection. A Mexican pharmacist gave me an oral antibiotic. It was the wrong one for an open wound. A week later I needed surgery on the toe. This is an area where a "good enough" guess can kill you. There is a reason medical professionals take years to train -- and even then use references, and unfortunately get it wrong sometimes. YMMV
 
OK, in a post SHTF scenario, I understand people using the big guns like cipro for wounds etc....but...

this is the old lab tech talking here, and just a warning that all antibiotics won't work on all bacteria. There is a reason we always do a sensitivity when we do a culture. Even within the same genus/specie of bug, different strains of the same bacteria will have differing levels of sensitivity to an antimicrobial....

Shotgun techniques with antibiotics, post SHTF, are wasteful, but about the only thing you can do if you fear sepsis...use what you got and hope that you are going to kill it, but the best advise is to be careful and proper wound care - wash the wound with betadine, wash your hands, clean dressings, wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands....
 
OK, in a post SHTF scenario, I understand people using the big guns like cipro for wounds etc....but...

this is the old lab tech talking here, and just a warning that all antibiotics won't work on all bacteria. There is a reason we always do a sensitivity when we do a culture. Even within the same genus/specie of bug, different strains of the same bacteria will have differing levels of sensitivity to an antimicrobial....

Shotgun techniques with antibiotics, post SHTF, are wasteful, but about the only thing you can do if you fear sepsis...use what you got and hope that you are going to kill it, but the best advise is to be careful and proper wound care - wash the wound with betadine, wash your hands, clean dressings, wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands....

What about hand sanitizer? Would this be as effective if you don't have clean or hot water? Also would it be safe to use on wounds?
 

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