The Doctor Won't See You Now

We rely on doctors for our health care. What happens in an emergency when doctors are unavailable or overwhelmed?

I have posted stories here of my efforts to understand my afflictions, and my successes in managing my treatment with a combination of doctors and my own research. Establishment doctors are highly skilled and give valuable advice, but they are products of orthodox training and medical rules established as “standards of care.” So it’s important for patients to learn about our own conditions, and alternative treatments, and blend them with the best medical advice we can find to maximize our results. That requires prompt availability of professional medical care, use of commercial medicines, regular testing to monitor the correct balances of our chemistry, and some supplements in over the counter pills to optimize that balance. These services and products were disrupted during the last two years by a fairly mild virus epidemic. There is a chance those disruptions could increase.

How would we maintain good health in the face of a widespread emergency?

I’ve been reading a substack called The Campaign that evaluates risks and suggests countermeasures to deal with them. This week’s post was an introduction to prepping, which is slang for preparing for emergencies — developing skills the meet our needs “off the grid,” and accumulating supplies that could become essential for our survival during emergency conditions. Prepping is a very diverse study since we can’t really predict what emergencies will confront us, and preparing for full comfort in any situation is daunting. But one thing is certain— we’ll always need medical care. Maybe even more during emergencies.

So I got some books recommended in The Campaign article, one from Amazon and one from the author. Both arrived promptly and I flipped to the medical sections. They provided very general guidance, but one of them recommended a book used by the U.S. Army to train Special Forces medics. Their normal day at the office is what most civilians would consider emergency conditions, so I ordered it. It is really cheap in paperback from Amazon, and only $1.99 for the Kindle version. They recommend having the paper version for emergencies where the Kindle device might not survive, but I like to get digital versions of books I’m studying for portability when I travel, plus the digital versions are more easily searchable, so I got both. Good thing. Apparently Army medics have better vision than I do! Titled Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook, it’s a little 6” x 9” book an inch and a half thick, with about a thousand pages and really small print. The digital version is much easier to read.

It has a wealth of information. It has introductory sections on physiology, tables in the back with medicines and their applications, and the largest part is a series of articles written by medical doctors on how to treat most any medical problem — in the field. I haven’t mastered the book yet, probably won’t before five or ten years of study. But I find it reassuring to know I have a concise guide to point me in the right direction in case I someday have no options. And I’m learning a lot by reading it now.

My experience is that very few real doctors have skills as broad as those described in this book. They’re all specialists and always shuttle us off to other specialists to treat whatever special complaint we currently have. So this book is probably better than most any individual doctor in most cases, though it would be better to have a hospital full of specialists than this book. But when Armageddon hits us, those specialists will be inaccessible, and this book and a decent first aid kit will improve our chances.

I assumed a government book would be poor quality and focused on Army problems — IED injuries, trenchfoot, gonorrhea, that sort of thing. Actually it does address those things, but also the whole range of problems that might beset civilians in austere circumstances. So I searched for alternatives and found a highly rated series of books by a doctor and nurse couple named Alton on survival medicine. The Survival Medicine Handbook is bigger than the Army book, and larger print, but I haven’t looked through that one yet. It is highly rated so I expect it is also a useful reference for difficult times. They have a companion book on medicines which I’ll get when I find time. I’ll write a more comprehensive comparison review when I’ve gotten more familiar with them both.

I’m looking for first aid classes to refine my skill set. I’ve had them before, usually perfunctory bandages and CPR practice. There’s probably more to it than that. I’ve also had internet classes on basic nursing skills, physiology and clinical practice, that provide useful insight in what is needed to effectively care for injuries and illnesses. I’m looking for more loke those. Another thing professional training provides is tips on what is useful and not useful in a home first aid kit when 911 doesn’t answer, or we don’t even get a dial tone.

So my to-do list includes the following

1. Learn the medical materials in my first two survival medicine handbooks

2. Get first aid training to develop my skills

3. Accumulate first aid supplies to build kits appropriate for individual, travel, or community support.

4. The next survival essential is food. I have experimented with special diets to improve conditions that stumped my doctors. I was vegan (low fat, high carbs) for two years, which was largely successful in improving my deteriorating heart, but seemed to cause heart rhythm problems. I determined the high oxalate vegan diet was depleting my magnesium, so I changed to carnivore (low carb, high fat) for the last year and a half, which is also successful. It seems unlikely I’ll be able to maintain either diet discipline in a long term emergency, so I’m studying how to assemble stored foods that can best meet my nutrition needs when the grocery stores are closed, without degrading my carefully developed healthy diet. I haven’t found any grass fed cows here in the suburbs, so I’ll need to adapt.

Our health needs to be considered in good times and bad. If we’re properly prepared, Armageddon might be fun. Or, at least tolerable. Hard times never last long, so we need to plan to maintain good health in bad times so we can enjoy the following good times. I hope to encourage others to begin considering the risks and making your own preparations to survive them. It is my hope that I’ll have company. If you have experiences with survival health matters, or ideas, or questions we can explore together, please share them below.