Med Supply planning... baby steps...

[creeky]

So I read "One Second After" about two years ago, needless to say having a child that is Type 1 it terrified me pretty good. We have been buying a little extra food over the two years. The buy extra when on sale plan. Which was amazing how quick that started to build up.

Economically things have been much tighter than for us sense the economy went south a couple of years back. So we couldn't just buy in bulk in one swoop like I would have liked. So we did the same thing when it came to medical supplies for my son.

We order 3 months supplies mail order and added just a little extra to our normal order. Not a lot just a little. With in a year we end up with this...

(By rotating out when the new stuff comes in we are able to keep supplies that don't expire for over a year.)

We keep it stored just above the regular medicine. (Aspirin, Motrin, Pepto, etc.) In the event we would have to leave the house quickly (and not knowing when we will be able to return) we have a special Red Backpack in the closet that we will everything in. Or at least half the Diabetic stuff and along with the regular medical stuff.

The other thing I did about eight months ago was make a special "Emergency Diabetics Supply Kit". This was in response to when we were out and my son didn't repack his Diabetic Kit. The same idea would work well for a regular quick first aid kit. (One you don't have to buy but you can raid your existing bathroom to fill.)

I use an empty Glucose Tablet bottle. (Cause we seem to have a lot of them! haha!!) I like using a plastic bottle mainly because of the syringes. Don't want them to break.

Contents (From top to right):

10 - Pen Cap Needles (For Insulin Pen)

6 - 30 Unit Syringes (We are using the rest of the up and moving to the 50 unit ones.)

16 - Lancets

4 - 50 Unit Syringes

20 - Alcohol Prep Pads

*Test Strips and Insulin are not in the kit because they are temperature sensitive.

These kept are kept in both vehicles and contents are replace Spring and summer... when the time changes. Makes for easy remembering.

The reason I posted this is as an example. You don't have to do everything at once. Times are really tough right now! I feel it is better to have something NOW than nothing, and add to it faithful as you can a little at a time.

You may not have Diabetes... but you might have another medical condition that is kept in check with prescription medications. Might be a good idea to keep at least an extra month's worth on hand.

[Jonnin]

We order it in bulk and have some on hand, but they track it --- cannot get the next bulk purchase until the first one is getting low, so its hard to have more than a month's supply on hand for a lot of drugs. Diabetes may be one of the easier ones, I am unaware of a black market for insulin or related drugs or any way to do much to abuse them. Basically, if you rely on anything hard-core to stay alive, and the country explodes, you are probably screwed unless you down-dose or something (take a slightly lower dosage for a long period of time to save a pill or two a week for emergencies..). Which may or may not be possible depends on what the drug IS. Lot of them have a shortish shelf life too.

[creeky]

Insulin is the big hurter for us. We work with our "Endo" on Insulin. We stay a little ahead, but with the teenage years his insulin needs have increased and we have had to have the nurse call the supplier and fax them medical orders justifying anytime he gets an increase.

Nurse says they keep insulin there as well they can give out if need be.

It irritates me that we can't just buy extra. Even if it was straight out of pocket.

It's not a narcotic or anything like that.

[daddyo]

Insulin is the big hurter for us. We work with our "Endo" on Insulin. We stay a little ahead, but with the teenage years his insulin needs have increased and we have had to have the nurse call the supplier and fax them medical orders justifying anytime he gets an increase.

Nurse says they keep insulin there as well they can give out if need be.

It irritates me that we can't just buy extra. Even if it was straight out of pocket.

It's not a narcotic or anything like that.

Insulin is the big factor. I can appreciate stocking up on the supplies, but without the insulin they don't do much good.

My adult son is also Type 1 and a shortage of medicine for ANY reason terrifies me.

[creeky]

Insulin is the big factor. I can appreciate stocking up on the supplies, but without the insulin they don't do much good.

My adult son is also Type 1 and a shortage of medicine for ANY reason terrifies me.

After reading "One Second After" I had a very hard time sleeping. We have a network of Type 1 parents in our community and the subject of unexpected shortages in delivery or production scares us all!

A complete collapse is something I don't like to think about. It would be a death sentence for my son. Just a matter of time.

We have friends that are pharmacists, and we know how much on average is at our local pharmacy and at the doctors office. But overall... anything short of a 6 month disruption is a major problem with horrific results for my family.

Then again, during winter months when we are snowed in, or like when we literally couldn't leave our house during the floods it was a big comfort seeing the extra supplies and insulin in the fridge.

[Jonnin]

It irritates me that we can't just buy extra. Even if it was straight out of pocket.

It's not a narcotic or anything like that.

If all they sold by prescription were addictive, easy to abuse narcs, the drug stores would go out of business. I would bet 75% or more of the prescription drugs are not easily abused at all. Consider birth control... if you could get high off estrogen or whatever is in that stuff, dope addicts would be killing every mammal on the planet to harvest hormones. The ability to use it for "recreation" is not why most of the drugs are off limits. I do not know what all reasons they use, some are just dangerous if the directions are not followed but that does not carry much weight since you can OD on cough medicine.

[creeky]

I do not know what all reasons they use, some are just dangerous if the directions are not followed but that does not carry much weight since you can OD on cough medicine.

Yup... drain cleaner can be lethal if you don't follow the directions and drink the stuff... but you can buy it off the shelf. For now anyways.

[UncleJak]

This has always been a concern of mine as well. My wife takes some serious medicine, not insulin but still very much needed, and I don't know what we would do if it were not readily available. The plan we have would be to ration it out and taper her off of it. I understand with insulin that is not an option. Her medicine could be done that way. Her symptoms would probably all come back and she would slowly go blind, but it would take years and not days. I wish I had a better answer...

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Has insulin always been an Rx-only med? Thought I recalled decades ago, standing in line at the pharmacist's desk and seeing people just buy it "over the counter". Maybe remembering wrong. It seems kinda odd that an insulin dependent adult diabetic wouldn't be able to buy insulin if he happened to have money for insulin but didn't have enough money for a doctor visit at that moment.

There were cases of murders done with insulin, and cases of non-diabetics trying to use insulin to lose weight without reducing calorie consumption. So I guess at least some insulin abuse is possible, and some would even be in the "non-victimless crime" category. OTOH you can murder with a plastic spoon, and plastic spoons don't require a prescription.

Wonder if some glucose testing supplies have an unusually long shelf life? The test strips I use seem to always have no more than a year of "use by" window, but maybe some brands last longer? Obviously a test strip wouldn't get wildly inaccurate just one day past the "use by" date, but if the manufacturer expects em to last longer than a year, then they would probably publish a longer time window? If a manufacturer could make product with a longer shelf life then it might help minimize wastage? It would seem likely that retailers and warehouses must experience at least some wastage when a certain percentage of the product inevitably goes bad on the shelf and can't be sold?

To finish the ramble, in the excellent TEOTWAWKI book "Lucifer's Hammer", the comet survivors in the hills include an aged perfessor who was wise enough to head for the hills with a backpack full of science/engineering reference books rather than canned goods. The perfessor is also diabetic and keeps going downhill over the months as the survivors try to get squared away good enough to find time and resources to try to make workable insulin from sheep pancreas as in the old days. Maybe such a thing would be impossible for an amateur after TEOTWAWKI, but maybe if you are worried about it enough, then it would not be wasted effort to research and find out if it might be possible in the worst circumstance if there is no other option? In which case, at least acquire references and lab equipment necessary to try it if there is no other option?

[creeky]

I just got an answer about why Insulin, rather "Synthetic" brands (Novalog, Lantus, Humalog, etc.) are prescription only. I have a friend who works in sales for a pharmaceutical company and he asked one of his clients (RN) with HCA. Here is what she said:

------- Email ------

Actually, Regular and NPH insulin are available OTC in most states. The newer, synthetic insulin analogues are the ones that require an RX. I think, but I am not 100% sure, that Regular and NPH are still available OTC since they have been that way for years. The FDA made the newer ones "Legend" drugs so they will require an RX and therefore will be regulated stricter.

Insulin can be a very dangerous agent. It is on the ISMP list of most dangerous meds. Very easy to miscalculate and get wrong dose when you think about it. And as for abuse potential, apparently some body builders are actually using it as a muscle growth agent. It is virtually undetectable in any drug test b/c it is a naturally present hormone. There will always be somebody who can find a way to abuse a drug.

Why is Bystolic a "Legend" drug? It's not a narcotic or habit forming. It does have a specific use...

I hope this answers your friend's question.

------- End ------

What is NPH Insulin?

NPH insulin/regular insulin is a non-prescription insulin medication. It is sold under the brand names Humulin® 70/30, and Novolin® 70/30. Like other forms of insulin, NPH insulin/regular insulin is used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes. It contains a mixture of two different types of insulin: a short-acting insulin (regular insulin) and an intermediate-acting insulin (NPH insulin).

We have never used this type, But we have an Endo meeting coming up soon and I will be asking him about it.

Edited January 31, 2012 by creeky

[creeky]

Test Strips... the one in the back of the picture (#3,5,7) all "expire" 2013. We have been told by nurses an doctors that that keep longer if maintained at a reasonable temp. That the manufacturer includes some wiggle room. We were told by the Endo that tempature extremes damage strips more often than age.

Syringes... our Doctor told us that the rule is one year for export outside the US. (He does volunteer work oversees.) This means that you can't bring Syringes into a foreign country for medical use older than one year. The reason is that there is a chance that will not stay sterile past a year. That said... he said as long as they are kept at a normal household temp they would be fine for a couple of years but he personally wouldn't go past that. Risk of infection isn't worth it.

Pen Caps... no biggey. A few years as they do not have any rubber in them like a syringe. There is still the "sterile" issue though.

[Caster]

One good thing, there have been break throughs in technology to make insulin that doesn't require refrigeration as long as it's below 75 degrees or so. That's a bonus.

The immediate supply isn't so bad, as you can check your conscience at the door when it comes to your family. You can bang it out and TAKE what you need from the drug stores (post SHTF) as best you can. The horrifying part is when the factories are shut down....where's the supply coming from. Not cool, man.

[mcurrier]

Yup... drain cleaner can be lethal if you don't follow the directions and drink the stuff... but you can buy it off the shelf. For now anyways.

ID now required in Illinois.

[Makiaveli]

ID now required in Illinois.

Meth ingredient I'm guessing?

As to the supply issues, talk to your doctor. There are options as to number of pills and size etc. Not saying do anything illegal, but make sure you are getting the largest amount per refill and for the longest time your insurance will cover.

[creeky]

We had an Endo meeting yesterday. Our Insulin prescription is being increased a little. We mentioned that we wanted to slowly increase our supply of insulin over the year in case of disaster or unexpected job change. They said no problem. The nurse said that they had been getting and hearing of similar types of request.

Hmmmmmmm...

[Guest Lester Weevils]

We had an Endo meeting yesterday. Our Insulin prescription is being increased a little. We mentioned that we wanted to slowly increase our supply of insulin over the year in case of disaster or unexpected job change. They said no problem. The nurse said that they had been getting and hearing of similar types of request.

Hmmmmmmm...

I have read and heard on the radio that quite a few rich folks and stock market types have begun buying rural land, stocking their fortresses, that sort of thing. Everybody has their own experience and perspective, and some "points of view" of people lower on the ladder might predict disaster at least as good as people on the top.

But if some of the folks at the top, who ought to have excellent information of the situation at that level which the ordinary person may not have access to, or may not be able to properly interpret-- If they are getting prepared in case they have to head for the hills, then it might indicate that the odds of a bad crash are certainly not nil.

OTOH, it might be a fashion thang with that bunch too. They's jest folks like everybody else and may be needlessly worried and over-compensating to make themselves feel more in control, just like everybody else.

I'm self-employed and don't precisely have a "boss" but do contracting to the same company for many years now, so the owner might as well be the boss. Anyway, he's not filthy rich, but OTOH if I had his bucks I'd be long retired by now. Very smart man. He's a canadian and hasn't yet acquired more than a shotgun or two. He hasn't turned into a raving gun nut YET. But he recently did the thang of buying the years worth of food and such. Might just be fashion among rich folks too. Or not.

He didn't own any firearms 15 years ago or 2 years ago. He didn't have a years supply of food stashed away 15 years ago or 2 years ago.

[Guest]

On the topic of med supply I think its important to have plenty of first aid items, not just for a major disaster, but accidents in the yard or while hiking, tornado damage, etc., etc.

This site was suggested in another forum Veterinary, Medical Supplies & Podiatry Products at best prices at Med-Vet International

They have bulk packs of all the medical supplies (still follow laws regarding controlled drugs like insulin of course) and what seem to be pretty good prices, at least as far as I know.

Although you need to order more than a couple things due to shipping cost, check out their BOGO specials. Right now they have 200c cloth fabric band aids for $2.69. Less than 2c a piece would make me feel totally irresponsible not to have a decent supply for times of need. Same concept for gauze, etc...

[Guest JHansonLPN]

So happy that both my kids are happy. Couldn't imagine what a nightmare having a sick child would be. Good job with the preps. Pray they are never needed.