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I've picked up a good bit on this thread. The latest is the aloe gel with lidocaine. I'm wondering if this would work for arthritis. I tried DMSO without success and wonder if the gel penetrates sufficiently. I just did a search and the strongest I could find is 5%; perhaps the 10% is a prescription item. Assuming my doctor would give me a prescription this could be a good deal as my insurance would cover it.
While I certainly commend those who have developed largely self-sufficient lives I don't believe that too many seventy-five year olds who have had white collar jobs and no strenuous exercise are likely candidates. I believe that certain activities would be reasonable, however; gathering plants and fishing both come to mind. It's too bad there aren't programs to introduce the aging (or aged ) tyro to these activities. Pheasant hunting might be another possibility. Many of the indoor activities would easily be possible.
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Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal
Great thread topic, I'm learning much from y'all who are a bit more seasoned.
Having a difficult time admitting I'm "past my prime"; but realistically, anyone over 40 probably is to one degree or another not as capable physically as doing many things as he/she was in the 20's and 30's. For instance, I don't like to climb trees anymore to do my hunting. I know that I'm not as strong, balance isn't quite as good, and that there is no shame if I can still harvest meat from ground hunting. I think that allowing pride to take a backseat to realism over what one can do physically is a good way to avoid unneccesary injury or even death in a survival situation.
That's a very wise statement. Better to be a live wimp than a dead hero. I would have repped you but couldn't. "Pride goeth before the fall." You don't want to deal with a literal example of this.
amazon carries all sorts of products at excellent prices. The convenience is great. I just found soap.com which carries groceries and household products; they have a number of things that amazon doesn't. I just got my first order. All was well but they cancelled some items and expiration dates were four months shorter than the store which is typical for amazon as well. Just don't overorder, particularly products that don't have long shelf lives. I know that while a can of chili a year past expiration has lost little taste and nutrition that almost certainly isn't the case for fruit juice.
As far as medical goes, remember that mature folks are more suseptible to extremes of heat and cold as well. Perhaps partially because of circulatory problems, but whatever the reason they are in more danger from very hot and very cold weather, so precautions should be taken to provide for that situation.
There are a lot of plants out there that have medicinal qualities, for instance green willow bark has some acetylsalicylic acid (asprin) in it and can be used as tea.
Any herbology used as a medicine should be used with extreme caution, and you should be sure of the exact plant you have, but it is a viable source of some medicines if the local drug store is closed down.
With anybody at any age, in a survival situation, moving slow and thinking before you do something will improve your chances of survival because any injury will make gathering food or working your farm more difficult, and could mean the difference between life and death as a broken leg or ankle will make it nearly impossible to gather wood or food or work your garden, or even get water from a creek.
Older bones are more brittle than younger bones, so the chances of injury are greater.
However, older folks have experience and have learned how to do things easier so they don't have to bull through a problem, they know how to think it through first. My parents are in their 70's so I have a lot of practical experience with some of the issues that they have with their self sufficent lifestyle, and they do very well thank you!
We don't have things like O2 bottles or defibrillators, mostly because in a SHTF scenario, those things, if they are needed, won't do anything but prolong either the victim's pain or the responder's agitation.
No, me either. I was primarily talking about fixable things like minor bone breaks, muscle strain, sprains, minor burns and the like. Good comment MoGal about knowing one's limits. I've stayed off of the roof for the past ten years because I have enough trouble (apparently) with level ground. No need to court disaster.
One thing we have been doing is staying fit with exercise and manual labor. I wonder about the people I see, often much younger than we are driving around and around the parking lot for the closest space and then huffing and puffing into the store and when there, leaning on a cart handle to stay upright. Some are young and aren't obviously ill or grossly fat which might explain things to some degree. I'm referring to folks like the normal looking teenagers that slump and shuffle around, that can't seem to find the energy to even do their jobs. How are they to cope in a world turned upside down, where they can't drive round and round to get close to an entrance anymore, if they can drive at all. Look around at the big boxes sometime. It's shocking.
It seems that very few non-military people have good posture any more. A couple of years ago a 40 something aged man came into the shop and he had beautiful posture, carriage and was very fit. It was so obviously different than the norm that I complimented him on it. Turns out he was a ballroom dance instructor. Figures.
How people have let themselves go fitness wise kind of reminds me of the brilliant film Wall-E where in the post consumerism wreckage people had gotten so lazy and unfit that they had floating chairs to carry them around while computers and robotics ran their lives that were filled with nothing but useless distractions and probably tasteless food in a cup.
Another thing that I tend to harp on is conquering addictions whatever they may be. Anything that one has to service will be more than a liability should the SHTF. Those legal and not so legal needs will not be met and then what?
Finally I think finding a joy that can be practiced without money, electricity or an elaborate set up may be a salvation of sorts, especially for the folks past their prime. Playing musical instruments, practicing horticulture, singing, dance, whatever it my be will inject beauty into one's later years, regardless of the surrounding circumstances.
Alas, no, my friend; the lidocaine does not penetrate deeply enough to help with arthritis. The only reason it helped with my splinter was that the surface nerve endings were exposed. After you posted that, I went to my bottles of Panama Jack Blue Ice and Ocean Potion Blue - and no longer do they say "10%" lidocaine! Dangit. They used to state it. I blame the FDA...
DH uses "Super Blue Stuff" - sold by Blue Spring Company, Oklahoma City, OK. He says it is the best he's found for his rheumatoid arthritis - and we get it at our seed and feed store! (Our feed store guy has arthritis too.) It has menthol as the active ingredient, but calendula, cornflower, feverfew, and chamomile as well - but the kicker (for me, anyway) is 'willow bark extract' - which is natural aspirin. The cowboys around here like it because it doesn't stay on the skin surface and get all sticky; it rubs right in and then its dry - plus it doesn't have that 'old people smell' of menthol , but a nice clean herbal scent.
As for being older with more brittle bones, it's true - I have been chuckled at many times for my "ice grippers" that I religiously put over my shoes/boots in the winter ice and snow. Yes, OK, when they bite in they are likely to pick up mud, and cow and chicken poop too - but I have and use those rubber-and-metal-springs because I dread a broken hip above almost anything. Me out of commission for 8 weeks is simply not tenable.
I suggest rethinking the O2 bottle. If thinking just emergency medical care, yep needing it for that may be too little too late. But what about all the O2 nees that are overlooked because people don;t have it available? Right now the majority just suffer along or resort to other methods that may bring on other issues. lets say you have a bad headache, suffer, take pills or a few minutes of O2 will go a very long way in releivingt he pain. In flight, we never take asprine or pain medication for headaches, its O2 which has proven to be a much better pain releiver and usually reverses the cause of the headache. At times hen faced with strenious activity but still needingt o be alert, O2 is the most natural fatigue reliver I know and it enables you to overcome the fatigue much faster. In a survival situation where O2 storage isn't a critcal issue, I see no harm in having it available. There are also some practical reasosn such as having a small ember turn into a big blow-torch with only a whiff of O2. I have had stale gasoline engines roar to life when O2 was used to suppliment the air intake. If you can get a full 200 size cylinder, that can last a year being used for common uses. A smaller traditional portable cylinder used for critical emergency/survival needs may also last a year.
and to add, for survivasl purposes, you dont even need a fancy medical grade cylinder and gas, you can get a purfied O2 from any welding supply store and keep it as part of your energency kit. I have the space so not having it just doesn't make sense compared to the value of having it.
Last edited by PacificFlights; 07-12-2012 at 06:07 PM..
I can confirm Pacific Flights ideas on O2, and use a welders tank I weld, braze and cut metal with for Clusterheadaches.
It has been a couple years since i suffered one, and i hope i have out grown them, but never the less I need the O2 for working and so I have it. O2 beats any other med so far as I can tell, but there is a certain few on a study that take psillocyben (sp?) and claim it helps.... never tried it, and if i did i would likey end up in jail......
im not quite past my prime yet, but i would include bath wipes as an absolute necessity.
i once lived in a tent for nearly a year without access to a proper bathroom and only wellwater - during winter, i found that there were many days that were just too cold even to spongebathe. from this i learned quick enough, that within just a few day's time, there are areas of the human body that will quickly begin to smell, become sore and take fungus. sunlight and fresh air are natural antibacterials, so those areas of the human body that have regular access to these, can go long periods of time without proper bathing - it is however the various cracks and crevices of the body that are ideal areas for the various bacterias etc, and hence quickly become dirty and sore without regular washing.
after suffering these consequences of not being able to bathe regularly during winter, the idea hit me of using bath wipes to try and resolve the problem - turns out it worked fine, my sore/fungal areas gradually cleared up, and with occasional warmer days that i could spongebathe outside, i was able to make it through the rest of the winter clean and healthy
a good general antifungal spray like ting would be invaluable also, as well as triple antibiotic ointment to speed the healing of various scratches etc
toothpaste, mouthwash also of course
if you can stay clean, all the rest that you have to do (and it is alot), will be much easier
I forgot what we had in some of our cases...I opened one and found a lot of bars of Lava soap, the stuff with pumice that cleans tough dirt and grease off your hands. Good stuff; we always have some at the garage. But the real find was a couple buckets of Bag Balm. If you've never heard of this stuff, or never tried it, you will be in for a treat! Loaded with lanolin, it softens the roughest skin, and heals cracks. Get a smaller container of it, and give it a try. Yes, it was meant for use on cow's udders, but the farmers found it worked wonders on their hands, too!
Due to questionably necessary regulations in the US, my husband's allergy and asthma meds are Rx and total pain to fill for more than 1-3 months. I take a med that is classified with a "risk of dependency" which also makes it hard to rill for than 1-3 months. It took A LOT of shopping around, but we finally found (at the old place) doctors AND pharmacies who understood our situation and would prescribe and dispense 6-12 months (out of pocket -- the insurance company was unhelpful regardless of reasoning). Those docs helped us the first year we were at the new place... but regulations and insurance mandates do not allow them to renew a prescription without an annual office visit, despite the fact that we have been taking the exact same medication, at the exact same dosage, for a chronic condition for over a decade.
None of these medications require a doctor's Rx or metered refills in Canada, Mexico or Europe... just the US. Even my "potentially habit forming" meds only require a pharmacist review in these other countries. And all these meds are dirt cheap in those countries if generic, and still cheap for name-brand compared to the US. In fact, it would be cheaper for us to fly to Europe AND buy an entire year's worth out of pocket, than it is to buy gas for the trips to town, pay for an unnecessary dr visit, pay our Rx insurance premiums, pay the co-pay and the remaining out of pocket in 1-3 month increments. Certainly cheaper for us just to drive over the border into Canada. Unfortunately, it is illegal to do this in the US and you risk serious penalties if you get caught importing these medications that are restricted/highly regulated ONLY in this country. Our gov't is so boned up on their "war on drugs" and the possibility that medications will/could be used to produce street drugs that they are totally screwing every person who has a legitimate need for these meds. Our corporate enslavers (the insurance companies) are so dedicated to making the most money they can while paying the least in benefits to their subscribers that they are totally screwing every person who needs them for chronic conditions.
So, if you have a chronic condition that requires a med that is unnecessarily regulated medication and you can't stock up for emergencies... blame the US gov't and insurance companies! We can't even blame the drug companies for being corporate greedies because it's our stupid laws and insurance practices that allow them to charge so much... they offer the same patented medications in other countries at more reasonable prices. And they wonder why we have such a huge black market drug problem in this country... geez!
In the meantime we're stuck with this stupidity... so investigate OTC alternatives and keep up with the ever-changing tweaking of effective ingredients. If you're lucky enough to find an OTC version that works with it's current formulation, buy as much of it as you can afford from as many stores as you need to because you can almost be guaranteed that the FDA or DEA will "discover" new potential hazards and street uses for them and force the formulation to tweak or remove the effective ingredients (grrrrrr). Investigate non-pharmaceutical alternatives and keep up with the ever-changing regulations and legalities of possessing or growing them (yes, even for personal use and some stuff that doesn't even get you "high") because our gov't absolutely must protect us from ourselves.
One thing we started stocking since we're approaching "that age" is various strength reading glasses. No they aren't prescription and might not perfectly correct our near vision and are gawdawfully ugly, but certainly better than not being able to read or work on anything close up once presbyopia sets in! We bought them (<$1 a pair) in bulk and all the same style, so there are plenty in each magnification for both of us even if we lose or break a pair, and we can split the bridges and fuse two different strengths together if one eye is worse than the other. Who cares what they look like, at least you can still see yourself in the mirror without standing in the other room!
Because we both have bad knees that we know will go sooner or later, we also have an assortment of canes (single point, 4-footed, headed, handled and arm braced), adjustable crutches and even zimmer-frame walkers.... all picked up cheap through garage sales, want ads and discount medical supply stores.
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) tyro to these activities. Pheasant hunting might be another possibility. Many of the indoor activities would easily be possible.
