From Blue Collar Prepping: "Guest Post: a Small OTC Pharmacy List" by George Groot. Before starting his list, Groot begins:
Every disaster prep list usually includes the words “30 days’ (or more) worth of medication.” If you are on medication, this is really great advice, but there are also a bunch of things you can purchase without a prescription that will provide you with treatment options from a headache to a laceration, and those are good to have on hand for when stores aren’t open. This list isn’t all encompassing, and it’s meant to be generic so that you can decide, “Yeah, I need that, but not that” and customize it to your situation.
He then goes on to list several consumable medications and supplements to have on hand such as pain medications, anti-histamines, vitamins, etc., while explaining a bit about each. He does the same for topical medical supplies such as sterilizing fluids (e.g., rubbing alcohol), antibiotic ointment, hydrocortisone cream, etc. And finally he discusses some "preventative" medicines for treating lice, insect repellant, sun screen, etc., as well as advice on storage and rotating your stocks.
Frankly, I would suggest keeping different types of some categories. For instance, ibuprofen (pain killer, anti-inflammatory), acetaminophen (pain killer, fever reducer), and aspirin are all inexpensive, can be purchased in large quantities, and act in slightly different ways and can be used for slightly different issues.
Anyway, useful information so be sure to check it out.
That's a good start, but why just 30 days?
ReplyDeleteThe author indicates 30 days as a norm, but I've seen other amounts. Peter Grant recently had an article on how to build up a one year supply of prescription medications. If I were to hazard a guess, the article was aimed at the beginner who is probably just working on a 2 to 4 week supply of everything else to cover the more likely short term disruptions.
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