Be Prepared

Razor,

ok, I'll bite.

Under #6(i) you have "krill" Lights. How many do you have and what color are they? Also, are they the "360" kind or the smaller "180"(?)?

MAB

[Shar]

We're seriously lacking in the medications department for emergency preparedness - so the list Doczilla posted is much appreciated.

I can start acquiring the OTC items Doczilla listed, but any suggestions on how to go about getting the Rx meds? Short of just hoarding a few pills each time someone in the family is prescribed something, is there a better method? Are physicians more amenable to handing out RXs for emergency preparedness then I'm assuming they would be? I know there are some foreign on-line pharmacies but they seem super-shady. A doc in the family would sure come in handy right now.

Recommendations?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Shar

We're seriously lacking in the medications department for emergency preparedness - so the list Doczilla posted is much appreciated.

I can start acquiring the OTC items Doczilla listed, but any suggestions on how to go about getting the Rx meds? Short of just hoarding a few pills each time someone in the family is prescribed something, is there a better method? Are physicians more amenable to handing out RXs for emergency preparedness then I'm assuming they would be? I know there are some foreign on-line pharmacies but they seem super-shady. A doc in the family would sure come in handy right now.

Recommendations?

Do not EVER hoard pills or short a prescription for ABX. Take the full course unless a problem occurs, and then go back to the physician ASAP.

As for the other stuff, you may be able to get your family practioner or a friendly physician to write you a scrip for meds every now and then.

One option I have found that will work is to tell them that you are going overseas on a trip, and would like to take a basic load of preventative meds. That would cover most everything but the narcotics and antibiotics.

Do not neglect that the first step in treatment and self-medication is to accurately diagnose the cause of your med problem. There is no point in launching an ABX regimen for a common cold, and some meds may temporarily mask the symptoms of more serious problems, possibly to the point that a life-threatening problem may occur.

Should your husband make it through SFAS, the SFQC, and on to a team, his 18D should be very helpful in this area of expertise.

Best of luck.

TR

[Razor]

Originally Posted by MAB32

Razor,

ok, I'll bite.

Under #6(i) you have "krill" Lights. How many do you have and what color are they? Also, are they the "360" kind or the smaller "180"(?)?

MAB

Personally, I have 4-5 (mix of red and green) left over from a previous need for nighttime safety marking. They're short (~6") and are 360 coverage. I don't consider them essential, though--I left them on the list to show folks an alternative to one-use chemlights.

[Doczilla]

A quick note: the above list of antibiotics is extensive to give many choices in case you are allergic to one or two or happen to have some around the house. You don't need that many different antibiotics. 2 or 3 will do the trick.

I completely agree with TR that you should not short any prescription, particularly antibiotics, just to hoard them.

Your family physician may be very amenable to providing you with the meds. Be open and honest about what they are for, under what circumstances they would be used, and why you are preparing. In this day and age of disaster preparedness, it is not an unreasonable request. Hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, and public health emergencies are all very real, tangible examples of the need for this sort of thing. The physician may help you out and may even have some good recommendations for you as well. This only applies if this is your doctor with whom you have cultivated a long term physician-patient relationship, who has seen you in the office as scheduled and finds you reasonable and reliable.

Physicians, when they know the patient well, will often write prescriptions for disaster preparedness, travel, marine first aid or survival kits. It would be a good idea to track the meds and if used, report that back to the physician when they were used, on whom, and what for. When possible, call your doctor first and explain the symptoms. He may want to see the patient (if possible), or may recommend that you go ahead and start taking the medications. (He will be able to provide this only if he has seen the patient before or plans to see them in the near future. It's illegal to prescribe anything to a patient that the doctor has not seen, i.e., doesn't have a physician-patient relationship with. If you're calling him about some random coolio on the street, it had better be the mother of all disasters for him to give advice or recommendations.) Contacting the physician may have to wait until a reasonable time in a disaster. If your meds expire and you want him to write new ones, bring the old ones back as a gesture of good faith to help show that no, you did not swallow all 60 Percocet for fun.

Note that the FDA and USP will only guarantee potency to the expiration date. If properly stored in a cool, dark, dry place, the meds may last much longer. Take your own chances with this.

Their comfort level with prescribing you certain drugs, particularly controlled ones, will vary. Do not expect that they will prescribe you fentanyl lollipops just because an 18D told you they would be useful. Injectable meds may potentially be prescribed for marine or wilderness FAKs, but don't count on it. Do not ask a "doctor buddy" to write them for you. In order to dispense controlled meds, there must be a legitimate physician-patient relationship, i.e., documented history, physical, etc. The DEA does not have a sense of humor about this sort of thing, and it's something that will get a doctor's license yanked on the first offense. I'm not saying that it's not done, but I am saying it's a tough position to put your doctor buddy in.


'zilla

Doczilla and other members of the the Medical Profession, I have a question for all of you:

If one takes antibiotics and almost everytime ends up with "C-Diff", what other medications would one want to stock up on for such an occurence besides Flagyl?

[Doczilla]

Originally Posted by MAB32

Doczilla and other members of the the Medical Profession, I have a question for all of you:

If one takes antibiotics and almost everytime ends up with "C-Diff", what other medications would one want to stock up on for such an occurence besides Flagyl?

Probiotics. Cultures of helpful bacteria (lactobacillus, etc.) have been shown to prevent or ameliorate mild cases of Clostridium difficile diarrhea. Culturelle is one brand name. There are others, but truthfully I'd have to look up which ones are effective and which are heath food store crap.

If any case of c.diff could be described as mild.

'zilla

Doc,

I have had C-Diff at least four times now and it is downright disabiling. Each time it felt just like the flu but 20 times worse. I would think in a survival situation one might not make it if one came down with it. IMHO of course.

I remember reading somewhere that the Israelis were told, taught, or something of the sort, that they could use their vacuum cleaners as a source for fresh air coming into the house through a hole in the wall as a means to clean the air from any NBC attack before it entered the house and/or room. I guess it would have to do with the HEPA filter and its size. Anybody else heard this before? Maybe we are on to something with that set up?

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by MAB32

I remember reading somewhere that the Israelis were told, taught, or something of the sort, that they could use their vacuum cleaners as a source for fresh air coming into the house through a hole in the wall as a means to clean the air from any NBC attack before it entered the house and/or room. I guess it would have to do with the HEPA filter and its size. Anybody else heard this before? Maybe we are on to something with that set up?

Sounds like a positive overpressure filtration system.

That may work for dry particulates, but I doubt that it will for nerve agents, and almost certainly will do nothing for blood agents.

You may get some protection from biologicals, depending on how tight your home is, by constructing a positive overpressure system, and it should keep radiological particles (but not rays) out, but chemical weapons will probably be enhanced by that technique, as the agents are sucked into the house and concentrated there.

So you have some N, and B, but not C protection, IMHO.

TR

What if you were able to fit a filter from a gas mask such as the NATO standard 40mm thread width onto the end of the stiff plastic extension of the hose? If you could do that along with the ability to keep the motor cool it just may work. Or if you were to use some other material to use as a "pre-filter" to eliminate "C" you would still have something that just might do it for a day or two. Especially if you had a sealed room to go to in your house, like the Israelis advocate in having, you wouldn't need much more.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by MAB32

What if you were able to fit a filter from a gas mask such as the NATO standard 40mm thread width onto the end of the stiff plastic extension of the hose? If you could do that along with the ability to keep the motor cool it just may work. Or if you were to use some other material to use as a "pre-filter" to eliminate "C" you would still have something that just might do it for a day or two. Especially if you had a sealed room to go to in your house, like the Israelis advocate in having, you wouldn't need much more.

A mask filter is built to deal with one person breathing, and to filter out certain compounds for a specific period. Some agents, like blood agents, incidentally attack the active ingredients of the filter, shortening its lifespan even faster.

I am sure that a vacuum cleaner sucks as much air in a minute as most of us do in an hour, so you would exceed the CFM of the filter, the filtration capacity, as well as the life of the filter element pretty quickly.

IMHO, it would be akin to trying to use a lawnmower air filter on a full sized truck engine.

It is a lot more efficient to design a mask and filter to deal with one human inhaling and exhaling for a finite period of time rather than an overpressure system conditioning all of the air for an entire house (or even one room) for an extended period.

If you have masks for everyone, and filters, that is probably a much better solution (especially if you have a detector or alarm to let you know when you need to mask), instead of using the filters to try and filter all of the air in the house.

There are some larger application filters that may work. I would only try the method you suggest as a last resort.

HTH.

TR

[Doczilla]

Time may be better spent on preparation for effective decontamination rather than providing a filtered air supply. There is greater risk from ingestion or cutaneous exposure to most NBC agents than inhalation.

'zilla

Originally Posted by MAB32

Now on a side note. In NEO we experieced our version of the "Perfect Storm" over the lower Great Lakes. It was a very deep low with a record barometer reading at the end of December 31 and through January 1 1976/77. Temperatures droped throut the day until sundown when we hit record lows of -10 to -20 degrees without wind chill which was on most occassions at 30 to 45 knots. It started in the morning when people were on their way to work and within an hour we had already 7+ inches and the street plows where now begining to loose the battle when the accumalations began to reach the 14-16 inches. In fact they ended up buried themselves. The snowflakes were at least two inches in diameter visibilty was absolute zero I remember that people were stranded everywhere there was a road or highway. It snowed a record total of acumalation of 4+ feet and that was the least amount some people recieved to my AO had a total of 5+ feet. Now here is where it gets interesting. Thirteen people died on interstates 77 & 76. They died either (most of them) form Hypothermia or Carbon Monoxide poisoning. They waited for 2 days for rescues that didn't come until the ONG started flying rescue missions and this was until the ONG pilots could make into work. The Govenor mobalized the entire ONG to come to our AO and when they did come they came by M-113's, tanks with plows on the front, massive road graders, or by Chinook and Hueys. Now these stranded drivers were ALL within a few hundred yards to one or more houses. It would appear that some either were afarid to ask for help or didn't want to leave there vehicle while they were safe and warm. The people that died of Hypothermia had used up all their gas and just waited it out with no supplies or even a blanket. They went to sleep freezing and never woke up.

Now, why would these people not leave their vehicles and head for a house?
This still blows my mind when I read books on our "Perfect Storm. What could they possibly have been thinking as they were dying within eyesight of a house with heat and smoke pouring out of the chimneys?

Originally Posted by Retired W4

I was living in Dayton at the time. Drove from Middletown to Dayton that night up I-75 by staying in the tracks of the few semi's crazy enough to still be on the road. Once home, the only thing that saved me was a 7-11 on the corner. They got snowed in too. "Oh, thank heaven for 7-11". I had just left the OHNG,Trp D, 1-238th Cav. My buddies out of Columbus did a lot of great flying to save people and livestock.

I was an ROTC cadet at Bowling Green State University at that time (site of the heaviest snowfall - we didn't get the NG to dig us out, we got the 82d Airborne). My fellow cadets pulled duty monitoring various radios, going out with the National Guard in Duece and a halves, and those of us who had cross-country skis (three of us that I recall) would ski from the truck on the roadbed to houses to check on anyone in them. We delivered needed meds, food, etc. to a number of people who were shut in by the snow.

A number of houses were so buried by snow drifts that they weren't visible from one side (often the side facing the road). In that part of the state, vehicles that went off the roads often dropped completely out of sight. In one case, I went past a house that we could see from the road, turned around and could not only not see the house, could not see the road. If I hadn't been aware of the cardinal direction that I had gone out (West) and how the road ran (North- South), I might not have got back to the truck. A number of vehicles were off of I-75, not far from BG. Anyone who remembers I-75 back then in that area can tell you that it is very possible even without snow to have been driving within a few hundred meters of a house and never see it. Add drifts that sometimes exceeded 20 feet (no exagerration, I skied up some of those slopes) and it is quite understandable why people stayed in their cars. As a matter of fact, going from one dorm to another on campus (a trip of 100 meters between five story buildings with absolutely flat ground between them) was physically impossible without some sort of physical assistance.

Well, I own nine gas maks and for my family that is plenty with the others handed out to family and friends, within reason of course. My top of the line being an AVON S-10. I can run with that one on. My M-17's are in excellent shape too.

By the way, when I went down to DRMO to pick up 500+ filters I was told by the gentlemen loading them unto are truck and after he had
finished he said I had to sign an EPA form. I was totally unaware of why he had stated"EPA". I then began asking a million questions!

In a nutshell, he basically told me that once the filters are opened and used, they are now considered a "HazMat" problem. He futher advised that I was to in no way dispose of these filters in a landfill, garbage can, or even burying them. Can not remember now why, but it had something to do with moisture in the filter breaking down one of the componets and creates a carcinogen after a while (a few weeks to a few months, max).

Anybody know about what this chemical created was called?