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I just added one more thing to my essential medical supplies - poison ivy medicine!
I have everything on the usual lists, plus enough prescription medicine for an extra month, but somehow I forgot my Ivarest!
Last week, I was clearing my fenceline. There were stems of our local sticker vine lined up along the fence and going up into the trees standing straight and leafless. I would pull each one up by the root; cut the root; treat the root end with brush and stump killer; wrap the end around my arm and pull. The vine would slowly come loose from the tree and fall at my feet. I would roll it up and put it in the trash bag. Imagine my suprise when one of the vines turned out to be poison oak disguised as a sticker vine.
I fled to the house, washed with dishwashing soap, but alas, it was too late. I ended up with that nasty rash from just above my elbow to my wrist. Even with treatment, it has been a miserable week. I am mostly healed, just look like I am recovering from a bad sunburn.
I now have a case of Ivarest in my supplies, and a couple of tubes in my bug out bag.
I can't help but wonder what else I have forgotten.
By the way, this year it's time for my tetnus update, and pneumonia update. How my of you routinely get these shots?
^^^I can't live without my "oatmeal" soap by Aveeno...
Awesome as a facial wash & great for cleaning up after Poison Ivy, Chicken Pox (in oatmeal baths for my baby), rashes, etc... natural & awesome soap.
I'm absolutely fanatic about hydrogen peroxide; I have a bottle in almost every room of the house, and a couple in the medicine cabinet. We use it for ear infections, as a rinse for teeth and gums, and dab it on wounds, especially where we pull out small impaled objects like splinters or wires. I mix it with baking soda not only for a toothpaste (cut it with a little water if your teeth are sensitive) but it will remove organic deposits from dentures -and other things that you don't want to scratch- overnight.
Ammonia is absolutely necessary for stings; but DH and I have found that the Ammonia "poppers" (crushable capsules) that we used to use for waking up fainting people store very well and are more convenient and portable than a bottle.
I always keep a bottle of burn jel with 10% lidocaine in the cabinet; the gel is soothing, and the lidocaine can ease pain - not only of a sunburn but from any other type of burn; it can even be used on small wounds to stop pain especially if you need to do a little 'surgery' to get something out of the wound (especially for children). Lidocaine in higher concentrations can damage the finer nerve endings, which is why the burn gel with only 10% works so well.
Gloves and cotton swabs (kept clean and dry) are absolutely necessary; never ever touch an open wound to the opening of any bottle of a surface treatment. I will swab the opening with a gloved finger or a cotton swab to get the surface treatment out, and transfer it to the wound. Those small measuring caps that you get on top of bottles of Nyquil are handy to have and keep; you can put saline in them to wash your eye so that you don't dump half a bottle in your eye and down your chest, and you can put your peroxide or burn gel in them if you have to 'paint' a wound. This saves you from dipping a cotton swab or gloved finger repetitively into the bottle after you've touched the wound.
Does anyone know if epi-pens require a prescription? I'm moderately allergic to bee/wasp stings and have also heard that they can be used in cases of pit viper bits to help give one time to reach emergency medical services.
I recently became aware of the many uses for the comfry plant. Will be adding a couple of those into my edible/medicinal landscape plans. Apparently they are a very good aid to fruit trees as well.
To answer the OP's question about vaccinations, I'd say tetanus is the only one I am religious about. I get one every 9-10 yrs. whether I need it or not. I've never had pneumonia (or any major respiratory disease) nor shingles (though chickenpox as a child) so no to those two vaccines at present time. If I'm not in a risk group I see no need for a vaccine. YMMV.
Does anyone know if epi-pens require a prescription? I'm moderately allergic to bee/wasp stings and have also heard that they can be used in cases of pit viper bits to help give one time to reach emergency medical services..
You do need a prescription; but it shouldn't be hard to get.
To answer the OP's question about vaccinations, I'd say tetanus is the only one I am religious about. I get one every 9-10 yrs. whether I need it or not. I've never had pneumonia (or any major respiratory disease) nor shingles (though chickenpox as a child) so no to those two vaccines at present time. If I'm not in a risk group I see no need for a vaccine. YMMV.
Get them. Pneumonia can kill. Everyone is at risk.
You have had chicken pox so you're at risk for shingles. It can cause nerve damage and blindness plus it's miserable. Having it once does not immunize a person like chicken pox.
Get them. Pneumonia can kill. Everyone is at risk.
You have had chicken pox so you're at risk for shingles. It can cause nerve damage and blindness plus it's miserable. Having it once does not immunize a person like chicken pox.
Thanks for the info. on the epi-pen. I think my physician will be cooperative. I usually just use wet tobacco on the stings and that works well but I'd like to have something more powerful on hand "just in case". At the farmstead I'm more than an hour from the nearest competant EMS.
Respectfully, we'll have to agree to disagree on your "everyone is at risk" statement as an arguement for voluntary vaccination.
Epi-Pens (epinephrine/adrenaline auto-injectors) require a MD physician's prescription in the US... in nearly every other country you can purchase them without an Rx at pharmacies, either OTC or with a simple (free) pharmacist consultation.
Tobacco is a great addition to poultices for bites/stings and contact dermatitis rashes (poison ivy, etc), and as a topical pain reliever.
Due to the vilification of tobacco and heavy taxation of tobacco products in the US, I highly recommend growing Nicotiana in your garden or finding a whole leaf supplier (currently only processed tobacco is subject to excise tax) if you want to use it for personal, medicinal and gardening purposes.
Nicotiana can be grown in nearly every location and soil type if the right cultivar is selected for those conditions. It's pretty low-maintenance and is often planted for it's ornamental flowers and foliage
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