Stockpiling drugs isn’t an easy task: it’s regarding money, it’s regarding making the most effective alternative, it’s about availability. You should have a minimum of a month’s medical supply, and the medications you stockpile can be simple to come by and are over-the-counter medications available at any massive pharmacy.
But others you need are harder to get. They include narcotic medication and different prescription medications you have been prescribed by a doctor. Narcotics are good for severe pain but are probably addicting so most doctors–even yours–won’t write a prescription for it without good reason.
That’s why we made it simple for you, and put up a list of these meds that you shouldn’t skip from your medical stockpile.
Tips to Track on Buying Meds
In some cases, the prescription medications may be gotten from your doctor. For prescriptions, together with narcotics that you can’t get at the doctor’s office attempt looking for an overseas pharmacy on-line, however it’s hard to predict which ones will be reputable or not. Attempt getting just one or two things from them and if they deliver reliably a medication that has the manufacturing label intact with the right medication name, you can still purchase from them.
You have to familiarize yourself with the generic names of medications as a result of when you purchase over-the-counter medications or buy them on-line, even overseas, the generic forms are usually much cheaper by far than the name brands. Knowing the generic names will help you determine what medications you’re obtaining on-line as well.
Often the labels are in another language but the generic name of the drugs is very similar or the same as the English version. These should be good substitutes for American-made medications.
But there are different ways that to get these medications. I myself needed an antibiotic, and I visited the pharmacy and didn’t tell them I was a doctor. In some situations and in some places, you can get antibiotics and non-narcotic pain medication over the counter. You just have to claim that you ar on treatment and you need to continue it, but that you’re not at home which you need a dose for one day. Chances are good these days that they’ll ask for your ID and your doctor’s phone number.
What if you don’t have access to what you need, though? Can these medication be replaced with other substances, such as veterinary substances? Yes they sometimes can, if you keep the proportions, and with caution, however you have to check the dose because this is very vital. Otherwise, if you are taking a dosage for a horse you’ll die. Look on the blister and see what it’s, then divide it with the knife, in 2, 3, 4, 5, dosages as necessary.
As for the storage, stockpile medications close medications that ar related to each other. For example, stock the respiratory medications together, the stomach medications together, etc. in a crisis, it pays to be organized.
Items past their expiration date may still work, however the will have a lesser potency. In rare cases, a medication a lot of past its expiration date will have altered its components to contain something dangerous if you’re taking it however it’s rare. When in doubt and if in need, you’ll take something past its expiration date but it’ll have a lesser efficacy.
10 Categories of Medication that You Need
There are many categories of medications you’ll want to buy, and you shouldn’t miss the following kinds of medication:
- Cold and flu medication: For congestion, cough, the pain of sore throat and body aches.
- Allergy medications: include sedating and non-sedating varieties of medication.
- Pain medications: include over the counter and prescription pain medications.
- Respiratory medications: This especially includes inhalers.
- Gastrointestinal medications: For heartburn, stomach distress, diarrhea and constipation.
- Skin medications: These include sunscreen and medications for various rashes and skin issues.
- Antibiotics: include those that cover for the majority of infections you might encounter.
- Birth control pills: A disaster is no time for a pregnancy, especially if nuclear radiation is present.
- Psychotropic medications. This especially involves medication for sleep and anxiety.
- Children’s medications: If you have a baby or young kid, you’ll need liquid medications specially designed for their needs.
There needs to be many more medications taken and stockpiled in disabled people and seniors medications than in children’s medications, and these medications include:
- Fiber laxative
- Aspirin as a blood thinner
- Atherosclerosis medication. Mevacor (lovastatin); Zocor (simvastatin)
- Blood thinners for stroke Coumadin (warfarin)
- Medications for arthritis Aleve (naproxen)
- Heart burn medications. Zantac (ranitidine).
- High blood pressure medication. (Lisinopril); Tenormin (atenolol).
Cold and Flu Medication
The cold and flu are totally different viral infections however they share some of a similar symptoms, so they are enclosed together.
Cold and flu symptoms include congestion in the nose, sore throat, sinus pain, and cough. The flu also has a great deal of body aches and malaise, wherever you just don’t feel good at all and need to lie down and rest.
Medications you’ll want to have on hand embody the following, the brand name is capitalized, the generic name is in parentheses:
- Sudafed (pseudoephedrine): this can be for nasal and sinus congestion. you have to ask for it behind the pharmacy counter even though it’s not a prescription medication because it’s one of the main ingredients in methamphetamine, and they don’t need people to purchase massive quantities of it at a time. Follow package instructions for sinus and nasal congestion. Sometimes you’re taking 1-2 pills every four hours.
- Tylenol (acetaminophen), Advil (ibuprofen) or aleve (naproxen): These are all sensible medications for fever, sore throat, and body aches. Take 2 each four to 6 hours.
- Robitussin DM (dextromethorphan): This comes in pill or liquid form and helps the cough. You need to use caution and just purchase plain Robitussin DM. Robitussin CF contains a decongestant that you already are taking when you take sudafed. Robitussin DM also contains guaifenesin which breaks up the thick mucus in your system.
What About Pain Medications?
There is a range of medications that are successful for pain. The 3 main categories are easy pain relievers, anti-inflammatory medication, and narcotic pain relievers.
- Tylenol (acetaminophen): this can be a simple fever and pain reliever that works on all types of pain. It’s safe to take by anyone who doesn’t have liver disease as it is metabolized by the liver. It’s typically taken in adults as 2 500-milligram tablets every 4-6 hours. It’s the added advantage of being able to be taken with anti-inflammatory medication in a pinch when the pain is severe and you wish to require something more than tylenol.
- Advil or motrin (ibuprofen), anti-inflammatory (naproxen): These are anti-inflammatory medications that work best on pain caused by inflammation like arthritis. They also work on fever and generic pain. Some individuals can get stomach upset if they take these medications on an empty stomach so it’s best to take them with a small quantity of non-acidic food. Attempt taking 2-3 tablets or capsules of ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. Take naproxen at two tablets every eight hours.
- Narcotic pain relievers. These work for strong pain and include Vicodin (hydrocodone and Tylenol) and oxycodone. provide one to two tablets every six hours. Be alert for signs of confusion if the patient is taking too much. You can get this on-line or get a prescription from your doctor.
What You Need to Know about Antibiotics
Choosing a simple antibiotic is difficult because folks have allergies and intolerances to antibiotics and there’s no perfect antibiotic for each illness. Poll your family members for allergies before selecting one.
Any antibiotic should have many properties: it must be cheap, simple to administer, it mustn’t cause resistance and it must act on as several bacteria as possible, in as short a time as possible. A good selection may be a broad spectrum antibiotic like cephalexin or keflex. Two different choices include erythromycin or azithromycin and sulfa antibiotics like Bactrim or Septra (trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole).
If you’ve got these five classifications of antibiotics, you’ll have covered for many types of infections including:
- Cephalexin: respiratory and upper respiratory infections, skin infections
- Erythromycin or azithromycin: upper respiratory infections and lower respiratory infections like walking pneumonia, skin infections
- Bactrim or Septra: bladder infections, some gastrointestinal infections.
- Cipro or Levaquin: used for bladder infections, respiratory infections, or skin infections
- Flagyl: used for parasitic infections and some gastrointestinal infections
Antibiotics won’t cure the common cold and they can do nothing for influenza but it will wonders for sinus infections stemming from the cold, a case of strep throat, and certain cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, bacterial skin infections and bladder infections.
You need to use them judiciously, when you know that you’re dealing with a bacterial infection. This means you have a fever, yellow or green drainage from the nose or coughed up from the lungs and redness around a wound. Strep throat and bladder infections are hard to determine. You only have to guess.
Give the body, the limb or the spot in question where the injury occurred, time to recover. Don’t immediately jump to medication, don’t begin pouring the whole reserve of medication down the patient, because you won’t solve something like that. Generally the best solution is to not do anything, not to force it.
If you dole out antibiotics before you provide the body a chance to heal, you’re wasting valuable medical supplies that may be needed later. Wait and see, and only when things are going towards the more severe end should you begin with antibiotics.
Breathing Medications
In some disaster situations, even folks without asthma can have issues with wheezing and shortness of breath. The most effective alternative for this is an dispenser containing a beta-agonist, which opens the breathing passages.
The trick is to use these medications in such a way that the medication gets in your lungs and not in the back of your throat. With inhalers, you’re taking a deep breath with the dispenser in your mouth and when you’re in the middle of the deep breath, press the plunger and keep breathing in. the medication should get sucked down into your bronchial passages.
This is the main medication you’ll need:
- Albuterol: this is available in an dispenser kind but it can be given in liquid form to young children. It needs a prescription so get one from your doctor or on the internet. Take two puffs as directed above each four hours for asthmatic and cough.
- Primatene Mist: this is a less effective over-the-counter medication containing aerosolized epinephrine. Take 2 puffs each four hours. Use it when you absolutely can’t get albuterol.
Gastrointestinal Medications
There are an oversized type of medication selections for the gastrointestinal system and you’ll need to condense them down to just a few. You’ll want something for the upper part of your GI system—your stomach.
Medicines for excess stomach acid and heartburn include TUMS, a drugs like Zantac, and a drugs like prilosec. TUMS is just calcium carbonate and it quickly neutralizes the burn of heartburn or the rumbling of an acid stomach. If you can’t afford to wait for many hours, try Zantac, which is a histamine-2 blocker, blocking the production of stomach acid.
If you can afford to wait some more hours but want all day relief, try prilosec, that may be a proton pump inhibitor. It more thoroughly blocks the production of stomach acid; it just takes some hours to kick in. The medication or medications you decide on for stomach issues and heartburn depend on your personal preference and on how much room you have in your stockpile.
For nausea, the quality treatment is Compazine, given as ten mg tablets or twenty five mg suppositories if the person cannot tolerate oral medications.
There are medications for constipation and diarrhea — issues that can befall anyone in a disaster situation. For constipation, you can select Miralax, a medication that must be mixed with a glass of water, X-Lax, which contains natural sennosides, or Correctol, which contain biscodyl. Of the three, Biscodyl is the strongest, which suggests it might lead to diarrhea if taken to excess. Choose the medication you’re most familiar with and stockpile it.
For diarrhea, you can opt for Kaopectate, which is for use in adults and very young children. It’s a liquid medication that doesn’t need water to use. You can also select something like Imodium-AD, that may be a pill form of a drugs useful in treating diarrhea when the illness isn’t a result of an infection. It can be taken only by adults as 1-2 pills each six hours or closer together if the diarrhea is persistent. If space is a problem, choose only one of these medications.
Treating Your Skin
No medication stockpile would be complete without items for the treatment of wounds, sprains and strains.
There are variety of items to decide on from. while nobody might become injured, disaster situations put folks in positions they can’t predict so ensure your injury kit is well stocked.
Items to stockpile include:
- Antibiotic ointment like bacitracin or neosporin
- Antiseptic cleansing wipes
- Scissors
- Cloth or paper medical tape 1-2 in. wide
- 4 x 4 gauze; it may be folded over when the injury is tiny.
- Ace bandages — 3-5 inches wide for the lower and upper extremities
- Sling for the arm in adult and children’s sizes
- Splinter remover to get rid of foreign bodies
- Ice pack; you can buy chemical ice packs that turn cold on hitting it with a fist
You can get very elaborate with injury provides, such as buying upper and lower extremity air splints and buying cervical collars for neck injuries but that will be overkill. The above list will cover the vast majority of injuries you’ll get in a disaster scenario.
As for skin ointments and creams, there are many medications you need to own on hand for your skin. The first is antiseptic ointment. Use this for cuts and scrapes so they don’t get infected. Conditions may not be optimum for keeping a cut or scrape clean so using the ointment is the next best thing. Most antiseptic ointments contain either neomycin or bacitracin or maybe both. An ointment called neosporin is good for all kinds of open injuries to the skin and contains each medications.
You might add a cream or ointment that contains hydrocortisone. The maximum over the counter strength of hydrocortisone you can get is one percent, which is effective for several different rashes. Rashes like poison ivy or different itchy rash can be managed with hydrocortisone cream. Allergic rashes can be treated with hydrocortisone cream as well.
These should be the basic when preparing your drugs supply. But don’t forget about the healing power of nature, and prepare yourself for replacing meds with natural remedies if needed.
