Medical
 

Seems to be a lack of medical preparedness showing here.

I for one am looking for the OLD surgical tape. Looked like sports tape, cotton, white, 2cm, and really sticky. THis was good because it was pourous so the blood could slip through it. Tapes I can find now are paper (dissolve in use) or rubberized which are great for some things but slippery if blood is still flowing. This stuff is as good as stitches in my experience.

Anything else you must have? Coloidal silver? Wasn't there going to be a colloidal paste for burns?

TS

Re: Medical
 

Cheaper Than Dirdt have the tape that you are looking for, I bought 12 for $5.00 and they are made in Germany.

Have at hand around $5,000 or more of medical equipment and also have my VA Dr. moving in with me together with his wife who is a trauma nurse, I think that I pretty well prepared.

Re: Medical
 

Simpleton, it's so good to meet with you again here at GIM. Seems like a long time since we've been on a thread together... silver was pretty cheap back then...

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3

Like you, I am very much concerned with health and medicine contingency needs. This is a big part of SURVIVAL often taken for granted by many who believe themselves to be prepared. Potential danger or disaster and NO DOCTORS -- of course I'm concerned -- and somewhat PREPARED.

I consider colloidal silver just one small but important part of my preparedness. And a life supporting chain could be just as strong as it's weakest, or even missing, links. One missing link could be -- a satisfactory wound closure.

To answer your question directly, I am not aware of this particular tape you ask about. In my survival medical kit I have instead two boxes of ten each (20) size 1 3/4" x 3/8", Butterfly Closures by Johnson and Johnson.

It states on the box:
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/...CMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Band-Aid Brand Butterfly Closures

• Sterile waterproof closures for small wounds and incisions
• Contains Dry Natural Rubber
• Won't stick to Wound
• Holds Skin Firmly

(A must -- if you are bird hunting anywhere around Dick Cheney...)

They stick on like a very-tacky-adhesive Band-Aid and are shaped like o-o so that the sticky part is on each end with a thinner band in the middle of each strip. I bought them at Walmart for about 2.2 FRNs per box of 10.

Myself having been Red Cross trained as a 1st Aid CPR and First Care Emergency Provider and even Swimming Life Guard for years, I realize that I am not by any means as knowledgable an EMT. But I bought the book, US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook. Army Publication ST31-91B I bought mine on ebay. There is a brief chapter on emergency battlefield surgery. This handy 22-chapter manual even has chapters on lab work, OBGYN, broken bones, infectious disease diagnosois, anatomy and primitive medicines...

Did you know two tablespoons of kerosene or a cigarette's tobacco swallowed... can rid a person of worms? Powder-ground dried bones or chalk... can cure diarhea? Pine sap kills chigger bites? :D

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Average Customer Review: http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/.../stars-5-0.gif
Book Description
The finest book on basic First Aid available; this manual is based on a great deal of experience under primitive conditions. Chapters include basic life saving first aid, opening the airway and restoring breathing, stop bleeding, treat for shock, first aid for common emergencies. Also, contents of first aid case and kits. Very well illustrated. Do not let yourself or your buddy die; read this book!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/096...42342?n=283155

Although it gives very much info about likely backcountry survival medicine, it omits details about HOW TO suture wounds specific techniques. I found such instruction scantily presented on a few sites online and so I printed it as an appendix to this book. So I'm pretty well taught, to some level at least, about how to close a wound fairly well in an EMERGENCY WITH NO PROFESSIONALS AROUND -- OR SOON TO ARRIVE.

I am single with no dependents, but maybe I could SAVE A LIFE, and only maybe it will be my own. I might want to save you, Simpleton... I'd sure help you out if I could. I hope for your sake that I only have to offer you a few butterfly surface sutures at most.

Furthermore I have assembled many things like:

• Vicryl Plus 5-0 Braided absorbable sutures, 4-0 Ethicon monofilament sutures, with cutting needles, expired dates but sealed
• Needle Holders, Hemostats, Surgical debridement and Iris Scissors, Tissue Forceps, a combination tweezer and magnifying glass
• Scalpel and 4 styles assorted sterile blades, topical anisthetic 20% benzocaine
• Stethoscope, Blood Pressure cuff, 30x lightweight field microscope, electronic thermometer,
• plenty of Surgical masks and gloves, Povidine-Iodine 10% Solution, varied OTC medicines in pills or liquid

... etc etc etc... you get the picture.

And I can pull from this large tackle box of medical provisions and implements to build any sort of more compact back-packable assortment if I must travel on foot for extended periods.

After all -- What is more valuable to each of us than -- OUR LIFE?

So some of you folks think field surgery is impossible? I have a friend who has some prize coon hounds and sometimes the raccoon gets to rip them up a bit. The dogs will hold still while he sews the wounds closed -- with a bent sewing needle and a horse hair or dental floss. He even does minor eye surgery on them too. He has never had a problem with this and animal bites are pretty nasty. He's a real country boy -- but y'all figured that. And he's sewing up hunting DOGS, but...

I can offer much more information but I do not want to hog this thread. There are some here who know more than I, like Bugle, one whom I seem to remember is a backcountry EMT. I realize nurses know a lot more than more than me too. And I'm surely not suffering delusions that I'm a make-believe doctor! Certainly I HOPE I am never forced to act as one. Plus -- my legal liability could be TERRIBLE. This is for sure SHTF stuff.

Anyway... I'm not aware of that tape you asked about, Simpleton.

Re: Medical
 

I've used them both, including the special tape you'd pay $1000 for when visiting your local ER, and I can tell you this tape is hands-down the best.

Good as duck tape in the field, good for sprains, stitches, blisters, minor cuts, boxing, climbing, everything. Like for items not to be single-purpose.

I wouldn't mind getting a site or copy of the better surgeon's sutures. Basic problem is getting the right needles though, flesh is tough as pigskin and hard to work without pliers--then you break the needles. ...Um, hypothetically speaking, of course.

How is triple-antibiotic ointment in lieu of oral antibiotics? Can you buy antibiotics somewhere? Seems like a better investment than viagra.

And didn't I read something somewhere about high-power drawing salves? Iodine or...? Sports people or horse vets may know.

TS

Re: Medical
 

Don't forget super glue for closing cuts. Works great, has antiseptic properties (from the catalytic action), and a little goes a long way.

Re: Medical
 

My coon-dog raising friend is a small farmer who raises and breeds chickens, horses and a few cows. I am sure he has on-hand access to anti-biotics and syringes, but I am almost equally sure he has no injectable pain killers due to regulation. I should have stated that he likely used injected general anti-biotics on the dogs before he sutured them.

My sutures have integral curved "cutting needles" with an ultra-sharp tapered trianglular triple-edged bayonet-type tip. They push through cuticular work pretty smoothly, so at least I understand. Perhaps one should consider to practicing on an animal cadaver, or even a pickled pig's foot or skin of a softened smoked ham, just for experience and familiarity. I have not.

The Needle Holder is a special instrument for gripping the needle shaft securely while mitigating risk of breakages.

Here are suture-related websites that I utilized for my own study reference:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Instrument descriptions

http://www.plasticsurgery.org/medica...nstruments.cfm

• Suture types and usages

http://www.fpnotebook.com/SUR116.htm

• Suturing techniques

http://www.emedicine.com/derm/topic828.htm
And these two...
http://www.plasticsurgery.org/medica...Principles.cfm
http://www.moondragon.org/obgyn/proc...g2.html#tampon

Re: Medical
 

For wounds needing sutures. I have resolved this problem with a product from 3M called 'STERI STRIP'...

My mom doesn't like to cook because she doesn't have the correct tools in her kitchen. To help resolve that, I purchased her a very simple knife sharpener and showed her how to sharpen their knives and gave the obligatory 'Remember the knife is NOW SHARP and will cut YOU as well as whatever you are going to cut if you are NOT careful'.

It couldn't have been twenty minutes later when I heard a yelp from the kitchen and there she was with a bloody paper towel around her first finger. She had sliced it on the side for about two inches. I sent my dad to the local pharmacy to pick up some 'steri strips'. He was back in less than ten minutes. We cleaned the wound, which was ALMOST to the bone. Then put some triple antibiotic creme on it and wrapped it tight with two steri strips. Then I covered that with a large bandaid.

A couple of days later, she had a doctors appointment and the nurse removed the steri strips and inspected the wound. She asked 'which hospital' had done the work. She was surprised when my mom said, "Oh, that was my son" with some obvious pride.

Two weeks later the wound healed. A month later there wasn't even a scar.

OK, enough of the OLD STUFF. We have large dogs. And three of them were working dogs and occasionally get 'into it' with each other, mainly playing. One of my 'boys' got a puncture on his neck. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to suture a puncture wound like this. BUT I found a product made by either Johnson & Johnson or 3M that is basically a medical version of the 'super glue' that was mentioned earlier called Liquid Skin.

IT WORKS GREAT. It took a few days of the open wound oozing a little bit, but my 'boys' are back at it again. This has actually been used TWICE, as the same two boys got into it again and the smaller one got another puncture on the other side of his neck. So, trim the hair, shave the spot, clean the spot with alcohol and then use the liquid skin.

If you don't have steri strips and liquid skin in your med kit, you are not properly prepared. And WALMART sells both. Fairly cheaply. I personally recommend that you have several spare boxes of each on hand. I DO.

Yes, I have suture kits. Extra suture thread. Even some stainless suture wire for large wounds. And a basic operating kit. BUT I probably won't be able to use it unless the need is DIRE. I am not a doctor and have not played one on TV, so you would literally putting your life in the hands of an untrained person, compared to a doctor. BUT if the choice was me or death, I'll take the chance if you will.

And we have LOTS of sealed meds that are out of date in storage. They have been rotated out. BUT I believe the aspirin and some of the liquid cold meds might still be viable. But these are my 'give away' stock with the severe warning "IT IS OUT OF DATE - YOU TAKE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK". Again, if it's that or nothing, some people will take the chance. Just my .02

Re: Medical
 

Good for a bump