Survival Hygiene
December 5, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Guest post: by ‘TripodXL’
Hygiene and survival, are you really serious? Absolutely! Your best line of defense for disease and other simple, but debilitating conditions, is following good hygiene habits and procedures, religiously. If your idea of being a survivor is being a “mountain man”, with a big bushy beard, wiping your mouth off on your sleeve and bathing “every so often” you’re in for a potentially life threatening surprise. If you’ve ever had butt-crack-rot, fat thigh rash, cracked toes with gooey toe-jam funk and other cleanliness related issues you have experienced what in today’s world are minor issues. You can just go take a bath in hot, steaming water and use plenty of soap and some “Gold Bond” powder or some “Lotrimin” and voila, you are “healed”. Not so in a survival situation.
In a survival situation you have to strive to avoid developing the problems in the first place. Your first line of defense against disease and functional debilitation is just plain, simple cleanliness. If you are in your “bug out place” and you have reasonable water supplies then by all means bathe everyday, without fail. At least have a sponge bath and stay clean. If you are hoofing it, you need to take a “cat’s bath”, cleaning under your arms, your crotch, and between your toes at least once a day.
Baby wipes are a good portable solution, just don’t use “kitchen counter” disinfectant wipes as they will cause irritation and actually cause problems. Preventively, use Lotrimin or some other anti-fungal on your feet, and talc or some other powder on your privates, thighs, butt crack and under the arms.
If you’ve ever had cracked toes with itchy, gooey, toe-jam, funk and it gets really bad, walking becomes a problem and if you are walking, guess what? You could be in real trouble if you have to lie up for a few days to get better or can’t move at all. If you are in place, this should never be an issue. Get prepared properly and have what you need at home or in your BOB to avoid this and maintain your foot and other body health needs.
In either case, unless you are being chased you should stop and let a significant problem get healed before hiking off or starting back to work on the homestead. Also if on the hoof you can change your clothes and turn your dirty ones inside out and lay them in the sun or hang them on the outside of your pack. This will kill odors, bacterial build up in the cloth and freshen the clothing. This is almost as good as washing them.
If you have any problem areas, such as acne or hypersensitivity to plants or other tactile contaminants you must keep them clean as well. If you are in place it is much easier to meet these needs and shave as well. Unless you have a bona fide hypersensitivity to shaving you should shave every other day at least. If you keep them clean, 30 plastic razors will last you 5 years. I am cheap, but I have a razor that is more than a year old and it works fine, I just make sure it is perfectly clean when I’m through. Being clean-shaven prevents odor, dirty skin, boils and reduces lice and other infestations. If you are on the trail try and shave as much as you can but remember, the heavier your beard the shorter the lifespan of your razor.
The most probable way of making yourself sick is with your hands, either by hand to mouth/nose/face/eye contact or by damaging a very dirty hand or extremity. Hand washing is THE number one disease prevention hygiene habit. Most illnesses are acquired by touching someone else (hand to hand) or something they touched, and then touching your face/mouth/nose/eyes. Develop the habit of NOT touching your face/nose/mouth/eyes and keeping your hands washed and/or use hand sanitizer, religiously.
When using tools or engaging in other hand and arm activities, keep your extremities clean. If you skin your knuckles, scratch your arm or have a really bad looking hangnail, be proactive and trim it/clean it up and rinse it with alcohol, Phisohex or hydrogen peroxide and put antibiotic ointment (keep 5 tubes or more on hand in your prep supplies) on it and a band aid.
I had an incident where I was bitten, accidentally, by an inside cat with all it’s shots. Within 24 hours I was in the hospital for 4 days and went through 11 bags of IV antibiotics. I would probably have died otherwise. If you can swing it the well-prepared survivor should also have on hand tetracycline (Doxycycline), Cipro (or some form of methicillin analogs) and some sulfa drugs. These have different uses depending on what illness/injury you have. Some of these drugs can be found on veterinary sites and ordered OTC without a script and used on humans (check this out, thoroughly on your own before using these, and only use them in a dire emergency where medical care is not available but ONLY IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO).
To recap, keep clean and address open wounds immediately. Being on the move is no excuse for not being clean. If you are in place then cleanliness should never be an issue. Stay clean-shaven, cut your hair, clip your fingernails, bathe, wear clean clothes, clean shoes and socks, and wash your hands. Make sure you have a supply of disinfecting materials, band-aids, and antibiotics. Also if you can find one get a Combat LifeSaver (CLS, Army manual) manual and find a trained individual to train you in it. These few simple things can prevent you from surviving TSHTF and then dying from something simple like a boil or a skinned knuckles. The History channel has a “survival” story where the guy manages to survive all manner of danger for months and months with his family only to die because he ran a splinter deep into his finger picking apples and died of sepsis. Due to my experience with the cat, I sincerely feel his pain.
Be safe and survive well!
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be construed as medical advice for specific circumstances. The information here is general, basic, first aid and hygiene concepts and applied to EXTREME survival situations as a general “example given” for intellectual discourse. Formal training in first aid and/or EMT trauma response is advised and they and your family doctor should be the overriding authority for your decisions for medical care for you and your family.
I knew you could do an excellent, and I mean an excellent article on something that few people give much thought to, something that can take you down quicker than many two legged individuals that mean you harm after a terrible event. It has been thought that an asteriod or a series of volcanoes was not the sole reason the dinosaurs were wiped out, it is disease. Bacteria is a nasty little unseen pathogen that spreads and breeds and will knock down the strongest person if not taken care of properly. The first line of defense is prevention.
I have been reading TripodXL’s comments and I have always said that this is someone that could really come up with some very valuable information that EVERYONE should pay very close attention to, and just look at this very informative article written. Glad to have him back after his awful illness due to a cat with all of it’s shots. Also people should be very aware of cat bites and scratches, they are nasty almost as bad as a Komodo Dragon bacteria filled bite. Again, very excellent article, and hopefully people will take heed to it and realize how essential hygiene is to survive.
Well, it needed to be said and he said it. In detail too. Good article about common sense cleanliness and hygiene. Also, it doesn’t matter how well kept and animal is, if they scratch or bite you even a little , get up and go scrub with soap and water to prevent and infection. I had a friend who’s daughter got “cat-scratch fever” and it was very bad.
KEEP PREPPIN’
An email from ‘TexJack’ :
When I was a teenager I had athletes foot real bad.(65 now) I tried the ointments and powders and they helped after a few days for a few days. But after the treatment cleared up the problem I quit using it. Then shortly the problem would flare up again. I had to do something else. My toes were killing me.
I found out that if I kept the toes seperated the problem would go away, and come back again if I stopped separating them. So I started putting cotton balls between and under my toes. It has to be real cotton though, not the war paint puffs that the girls use. The cotton not only separates the toes but also absorbs the moisture thats the main cause of the problem.
Anyway, after I discovered this secret I’ve been using it ever since.(every day) By the way cotton balls are not balls at all. They are rolls.If you unroll them they are real easy to apply, and they work. If you get in a situation where you can’t get cotton you can use a piece of clean cloth or paper towel, anything to keep the toes separated.
If anyone out there has a problem with athletes foot I would suggest investing in cotton balls and forget the “applied treatments”. Save your money for prepping.
@TexJack; Tinea pedis (athletes foot) is actually a very nasty infection. It’s not that the creams don’t work, it’s that people quit using it when the symptoms disappear but the disease is not gone, it can live deep in the skin or nail bed. If you use the cream, you should continue to use it for 2 weeks (yes, that’s right) after the symptoms go away. If you have a nail bed infection it will still come back, so you might have to apply cream to the nail for several months (yes, that’s right also) or you can take some very nasty medicine for 71 days to get rid of it. I finally had to do that as I had an infection, off and on for over 30 years, from the time I was a teenager. I have managed to keep it in check with Lotrimin or Lamasil since then. When I went to the desert the last time I tried using “liner” socks that you wear inside your combat boot sock. I had horrible foot rot. Finally figured out that the “liner” socks were cotton which stay wet when they get wet, and this was my problem. Quit using them and it went away, with proper treatment. That is not to say that your cotton balls are not appropriate as you describe, they probably pull water FROM the foot and toes thus helping the foot heal. Also ALL the shoes/boots need to be treated with powder, religiously, for months as well. There is so much potential cross contamination that unless you treat every pair of shoes/boots and keep using the creams long after the symptoms and then maintain proper foot hygiene and care for many months, it is virtually impossible to get rid of athletes foot.
A few natural helpful things…
Style in the eye (eye red and swollen with bump from plugged duct): Wash hands and nails really well, put a drop of organic olive oil on your finger tips and rub together (thumb and pointer), apply to the duct opening that corresponds to the bump or soreness by lifting the eyelid off the eyeball and rubbing with oil. Apply lightly since it will sting your eye. My 8 yr old’s eye was red and swollen and she felt the pressure of the bump on her eye. Twenty minutes after the first treatment, she said the bump felt better. After 2 treatments and a good nights sleep, it was completely gone. I’ve used it myself several times with success.
Canker sores from citrus: MSM (sulphur) does the trick. We use Kal Brand 1000mg. If you have or had a lot of mercury fillings, the Vit. C in the citrus needs sulphur to detox the metals left behind from the fillings in your mouth. If you’re low in sulphur, the process will start and make a canker sore.
Bladder/Urinary Tract infection: Take several doses of D-Mannose (at health food store). It is a sugar found in cranberries that the bacteria (like e-coli) love to eat. The mannose coats your urinary tract and causes the bacteria to let go of you and attempt to eat the sugar as it is washed out of your system. The sugar is not absorbed into the bloodstream and does not raise blood sugar levels. I can attest to this since I’m diabetic and just had an infection (all the symptoms) but was able to nip it in the bud and not have to go to the doctor. I’m expecting so the next ObGyn visit showed that everything was clear (no infection). It worked very quickly without and glucose spike. Another friend of mine had started using Mannose about a year ago with much success after she attempted many medical treatments that would not clear up the infection for her. Note: Cranberries are not as effective since they contain a small dose of mannose and also have other sugars (that feed the bacteria) present.
Redness in folds of skin: Especially for babies, apply olive oil and rub it into the skin.
Food Poisoning: Drink Kombucha, I actually found an article about this on PubMed and experienced this once myself. I had thrown up many times and as soon as I drank the Kombucha, I felt a burning all the down, I threw up no more, and I felt lots better.
Burns: Raw egg white applied to the burn. Raw honey helps, too, as long as it really is raw honey…
Cuts: Freshly cut onion applied to the cut.
Bee/Wasp Stings: Tear a plantain weed leaf and apply the juice.
Hope that helps…
One item to add that EVERYONE should have in their survival supplies is Epsom Salts. Salt is one of the best disinfection agents that there is and the magnesium in Epsom Salts softens the skin.
To treat athlete’s foot without otc meds, purchase or make a tincture of wormwood and use a cotton ball to apply to affected areas and after it dries you can apply a little quality coconut oil. Do this daily after showering. A mild soap with tea tree oil is a good astringent for mild cleansing (some folks can be sensitive to tea tree).
For general poisoning it’s best to have activated charcoal on hand. Learn how to use it so you know what to do when you need it. It can be taken internally and applied as a poultice as in the incidence of the cat bite..It’s cheap and it works. The Epsom Salts as mentioned above is also good to have around. Also, I think someone else may have mentioned honey, it is a great wound healer for burns and non-healing wounds.
As for wipes, home made hand wipes are a great idea to avoid unwanted chemicals used in about all store purchased wipes.
Thanks for your blog, I really enjoy reading here:)
@ Traci. Having activated charcoal is an absolute must and people should realize that this little gem has saved many pets that have gotten into chemicals that have poisoned them. With honey, do you know that honey will help neutralize the venom after getting stung by a bee? I have used this many times on bee stings, works well on wasp and hornet stings also. Something I have heard that is good for internal parasites is black walnut, I can imnagine that if this is true eating walnuts would work also, as you mentioned wormwood, I believe that is also used for parasites.
So many people take for granted health and sanitation, and those little germs will take someone down quicker than anything. Another issue that many women should take quite seriously is the feminine needs that will not be avaliable in survival situations and avoid the risks from Staphyloccal Enterotoxin B (SEB) Toxic Shock Sydrome (TSS). Having a well stocked supply of all the needs we take for granted like toilet paper is essential for any survival stock.
This is a wonderful blog, we all learn so much that will one day come in very handy. I am sure Ken is always looking for more brilliant ideas to post, they help everyone. Two thumbs up for TripodXL’s great article and opening people’s eyes about one of the most important aspects of survival.
@BI; Yes, thank you for your support. @Traci, yes the granulated charcoal will save a life if poisoning is involved, it should be in every first aid kit along with syrup of ipecac although it has fallen out of favor. I think it still serves a purpose as everyone cannot throw up on demand. It should be used carefully, though. The point of being here is to debate the facts and if there are factual issues then discuss them and the varied ways of achieving success in a survival situation. I don’t care if I am wrong, let me know and I will adjust my dialog. My premise is like that of the founding fathers; “If we don’t hang together, we shall surely hang together”. Yeah, don’t pet the cat; LOL!!! Survive well. Enjoy.
Oh how do I go back to the same situation about being bitten by a cat! I was bitten on New years eve and a day later spent a whole week in hospital with IV bags and all sorts hanging out of me – took a further 6 months to get back into some sort of shape!
The scariest thing was seeing the infection track up my arm in my lymph system towards my armpit node… Not good!!!
Word of warning, when in the SHTF situation ‘Do not pat a cat!…