In a long term recession/depression, being able to afford even basic medical care will be expensive and beyond the means of many people. In a “shit hits the fan” “end of the world as we know it” scenario, there may not even be any professional medical care available. Even if you can afford medical care, we really shouldn’t be as reliant upon doctors as we are. There are many, many medical situations that don’t require professional attention, and one of the important things about survival of any sort is knowing when to take care of yourself and when to seek professional medical help.
For instance, if you stub your toe – would you go to the ER, knowing that even if you broke the toe, there would be virtually nothing the medical establishment could or would do for you? Unless your broken toe breaks the skin requiring stitches or is so badly broken it needs to be reset, all a medical establishment and medical professionals can or will do for you is provide you with a low-level analgesic and an x-ray to confirm the break, and tell you to use cold to reduce the swelling and bruising, elevating the foot, staying off it as much as possible, and using heat to speed the healing once the swelling and bruising have stopped forming. You can do all of that for yourself without an ER fee. And yes, I saw the House M.D. episode where the Antarctic doctor was dying because she broke her toe. That’s extremely rare, and occurred mostly because she didn’t know her toe was broken. Believe me, if you stub your toe in warmer climates than the Antarctic, you will know it and take care of it immediately.
There are many other minor medical issues you can treat yourself, allowing doctors to handle those medical issues that require their expertise and skill, especially if you are otherwise healthy – meaning you don’t have a chronic ailment requiring frequent medical monitoring, like diabetes or heart disease. Colds, minor burns, sunburns, poison ivy, most sprains, bruises, scrapes, heat exhaustion (but not stroke!), most fevers, minor aches and pains related to exercise or hard work, headaches caused by stress, tension, allergies, or colds, cuts that don’t require stitches, and so on are not ER worthy, nor do they often require the attention of a medical professional.
The reasons for self-diagnosis and treatment are diverse, but rest mainly on the concept of control – we need and want to control as much of our environment as we can, from housing, food, clothing, work, and leisure activities to our own health. We’re no longer as willing to listen to authority figures such as doctors when we’ve experienced repeated denials of health care service we feel we need by insurance providers and experienced one or more misdiagnoses from our doctors, who share with us only what information they feel we have to know in order to do what they’ve decided we need to do, and not enough information for us to make an informed decision for our own health care. Between the secretive doctors and the restrictive insurance providers, it’s no wonder Americans are returning to folk medicine.
But we shouldn’t embrace folk medicine just because it’s cheaper (it’s not, not the effective good alternative treatments), or easier (it’s not, because pharmacies don’t provide what we may need without prescriptions so we have to learn to compound the formulae ourselves), or safer (it’s not, natural doesn’t equal safe, most poisons are natural and allergies are often to natural things, like wheat or peanuts – both perfectly natural). We treat ourselves because it makes sense to do so. We have the knowledge, skills, and ability to take care of minor health issues and we should treat those things ourselves because we can. We have access to more knowledge than ever before and medical equipment companies are creating home versions of formerly expensive medical tests like glucosometers, blood pressure monitors, pregnancy and ovulation tests, HIV, blood thinning and anemia tests, blood typing, urinary tract infections, thyroid, kidney screening, mold, allergies, osteoporosis, cholesterol, yeast infection, glandular fever, syphilis, dengue fever, heart rate monitors, vision and hearing tests, and occult blood. We have internet databases that help us compare our symptoms to the most likely diseases so we can be prepared when we do have to visit a doctor. And we have access to a huge range of over the counter medications – less now than we did a few years ago because of hyperinflated fears about meth labs, but still a large pharmacy of medications for which we don’t need a doctor’s visit. If we combine the knowledge available to us, the home tests we can use, common sense, preventive measures, and the legal pharmaceuticals, we have a huge amount of control over our health and all this puts us in a position of adult interacting with adult when we do need the services of a medical professional.
Taking charge of our own health doesn’t mean never seeing a medical professional. What it means is knowing when to see a medical professional and being informed enough to make the decisions we need to make for our optimal health care.
Preventive health care and medicine is much cheaper than treatment for preventable health issues. This is the area where we can take the greatest control for ourselves and our family. Survival, whether in the city or the country, depends upon us being healthy.
A person who intends to survive takes responsibility for their actions, their health, and life’s challenges. Start by getting your CPR certification. Most fire stations now offer free CPR certification. Take a first aid course http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/FirstAidIndex/FirstAidIndex or http://www.healthy.net/scr/MainLinks.asp?Id=170 as a start.
Then there’s the wide field of preventive health care. No matter how careful you are, there will be times when you get hurt or get sick, but those instances can be reduced. If you’re in a long term survival situation ( like the recession/depression we’re currently in and which may last a decade before it starts reversing itself), preventive health care is all the more important because access to professional medical care may be restricted or non-existent.
The first step in preventive health care is to know what your personal health risks are. Family medical history can help you here – does your family medical history contain people who have, had, or died of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, seizure disorders, bowel disorders, ulcers, Alzheimers or other forms of senile dementia, bad teeth, addiction disorders, or any genetic disorders like Tay-Sachs or celiac or sickle cell? Are family members prone to being overweight, underweight, or to have vision or hearing problems? Are any family members prone to mental disorders or brain chemistry imbalances? Once you’ve pored over that information and determined your risk factors (time well spent with a medical professional), you can plan out your preventive health care program. If you know your family is prone to particular health issues, pay attention to what the symptoms for those issues are and keep alert for any of them that may develop in you. Early intervention in some of them can prevent them from developing into an expensive series of treatments and can extend your life.
Diet plays a large role in a lot of preventable health issues. The closer your food is to real food, the less likely your food is to cause you health issues. This isn’t to say it will never cause you problems, even the best food can get contaminated and either scarcity or excess can cause weight problems. Almost any food can be the culprit for allergies and food sensitivities. Vitamin deficiencies can creep into limited diets, so as wide and varied a diet as possible can help reduce those issues. Portion control can allow you to eat favorites even if your family is prone to diseases caused by too much fat or sugar or protein or carbohydrates. Don’t look at your diet in terms of calories and/or denials. Instead, look at it as a method to keep yourself healthy and happy. If you’re growing part of your diet, you’ll automatically be controlling your portions because you’ll be sowing, weeding, feeding, harvesting, and preparing it. All of this will help you appreciate and savor your food, which means you’ll be wasting less by preparing only what you know you’ll be eating.
Eat soon after you wake up. A good meal early in your workday is healthier than eating heavily before you go to bed. You get more from the calories you eat when you do this; it makes you more alert, provides you with necessary stamina, and your body absorbs more vitamins and minerals early in your day. Consider doing what the Germans used to do (I don’t know if they still do this which is why I’m using past tense), but eat something light as soon as you get up -a piece of fruit or a raw vegetable, then after you’ve been up and worked for an hour or two, eat something more substantial while you take a short break. Eat things like canola oil, walnuts, flaxseed, tuna, salmon, trout, and mackerel as part of that breakfast if you can. These all contain or convert to omega-3 fatty acids in your body and that is a good thing for you.
In survival situations, getting enough exercise is not usually an issue. You’ll likely be doing much more manual work – walking, biking, gardening, hunting, wildcrafting, carpentry, mechanic work, and more – because it will either be cheaper to do it yourself or because you’re the one who knows best how to do these things. During rolling brown-outs or in the event of power outages, you’ll be using more manual equipment, and no matter how cleverly designed, they all use muscle power which is exercise. If your situation is mild, you may want to include doing some manual work as practice in case you will need it. With gas prices so high, walking and biking are good alternatives to driving a car. If you walk to nearby places for errands or going to work, you get your exercise in without having to spend time at the gym and paying to get your exercise in.
Weight is also rarely an issue in survival situations, unless you are underweight to being with. Underweight people face a lot of hardships in survival situations as they are prone to malnutrition issues, to a weakened immune system, and they lack physical reserves to get the work done they need to do. It’s usually better to start out at least mildly overweight to give your body some reserves during hardships. Morbid obesity, where your excess weight causes you mobility problems, is to be avoided. The very underweight and the very overweight people will have special challenges in survival situations. Calorie restriction and exercise alone will not cause a person to lose weight, although a diet closer to real food coupled with exercise may.
Getting enough sleep is an issue in a survival situation. You may not be in a safe place, or you’re worried or stressed over what’s happening, but sleep is essential for staying healthy. Not everyone needs to have their sleep done in one long continuous stretch, but we all need between 7 and 10 hours of sleep in each 24 hour period. Catnaps and power napping can be added to a shortened sleep period.
Brush and floss your teeth. A lot of germs and bacteria live in your mouth and a clean mouth can contribute to your overall good health. The bacteria that causes dental plaque causes plaque build-up in your arteries, so brushing and flossing daily can improve your heart health as well as your teeth can immune system. For women, poor oral hygiene has been linked to pre-term pregnancies and low birth weight babies.
Stay properly hydrated. Dehydration causes organ damage and the body will go into starvation mode by clinging to every molecule of moisture even after you start rehydrating – causing you to develop fluid in places where there shouldn’t be excess fluid, like your lungs and the chest wall cavity. If you are dehydrated, slow and steady rehydration is the best way to go. If you are dehydrated, you will have scanty or no urine output, and what little you produce will be dark. If you go 12 hours without urinating or your urine is very concentrated and dark, start rehydrating slowly but steadily. There are two kinds of overhydration. Both can be dangerous of not treated correctly. One is overhydration caused by kidneys, liver, pituitary gland, and/or heart not functioning correctly and needs to be treated by a medical professional. The other type of overhydration is a short distance away from suffering from water intoxication – taking in more fluid than the body can excrete in a reasonable amount of time and diluting the electrolytes in the body – this leads to confusion, to shouting and delirium, blurred vision, muscle cramps, nausea, weakness, partial paralysis, rapid breathing, seizures, and coma. Water intoxication can be caused by sweating heavily and drinking lots of fluids without replacing electrolytes. Don’t do that. If you’ve been working up to drinking excessive amounts of water (that ubiquitous half gallon jug some people tote around like a lifeline and drain one or more times a day), the only real issue with gradual overhydration is if you’re suddenly denied fluids. Your kidneys will continue to function for some time as if you were still taking in excessive amounts of water. If you’re not getting any water at all – say you were in an earthquake and all the water sources disappeared – you could be in serious trouble if your body is used to a high level of water intake. Overhydration is detected by frequent urination of totally colorless fluid. What you want is to be adequately hydrated – not too little and not too much – your urine output is pale, clear, and not too frequent. Colorless urine or dark urine are both indications of hydration issues.
When around contagious people, take precautions. Wash your hands frequently, don’t touch your face, wear breathing protection, don’t let them prepare your food and don’t eat around them to prevent catching what they have. Change clothes after being around them and wash those clothes soonest.
Preventing injuries is just as important as practicing good health habits.
Treat minor health issues promptly – don’t shrug off a cut – clean it as soon as possible and treat it so it doesn’t get infected. Rest sprains so they can heal instead of developing into a permanently damaged joint. Warm up before engaging in heavy work and cool down afterwards – why treat racehorses better than you treat yourself? Pace yourself when you work hard so you don’t over-extend yourself. Use sunscreen or wear protective tightly woven clothing when you have to be out in the sun. Wear UV protected eye gear in the sun and in situations with glare, wear physically protective eye gear in dangerous situations like chopping wood or working with anything that might throw up small pieces and slivers of things. Wear breathing protection in situations with dust or particulates in the air. Test the rungs of a ladder before you commit your full weight to it. Wear heavy gloves with handling things that could damage them, and wear steel toes or heavy shoes to protect your feet. Learn the most ergonomic ways to work so you place less stress on your body and prevent injuries.
Use common sense and precautions when doing something that could cause you injuries, and remain focused on what you are doing so you don’t get distracted. Most accidents happen during a distraction.
