Hey, so, I've seen several folks talking about how coronavirus advice givers insist you should everything on hand for two weeks -- including your medicine, and how impossible that is.
I'm a small-scale prepper who has been working on getting a month's worth of medicine on hand for a couple years now. If you want to be able to have extra meds on hand for emergencies, here's some tips:
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Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •If you have a good doctor, talk to them.
A doctor can up your dosage for a couple month so you can 'try' the higher dose, then 'decide it doesn't work'. You squirrel away the extra from the higher dosage.
Your doctor can also call in refills early. How well this works will depend on your insurance and pharmacy, but if your doc calls in refills 5 days before they run out 'to be sure you're covered' and you can get them right away...
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Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •...that's five extra days of medicine you can save.
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Do you have as-needed medication? Those are the easiest to save. Every time you don't need it, take it out of the bottle and put it with your emergency supplies.
Most of us aren't good about taking our medication every day. Some of us miss often, some only once a month or so. But it happens.
Get one of those weekly or monthly medicine things, or make one yourself. ...
Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •At the end of the week/month, every dose that you forgot to take goes in emergency supplies.
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Call your insurance.
Yeah, I'm serious. Many insurers have a policy that they will authorize an extra refill once every year to account for lost, stolen, etc shit. This is also supposed to cover in case of a natural disaster, you can call and say 'my house got flooded and I lost all my medicine!' and they'll get a refill authorized early.
Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •So use that policy, call them and ask if you can get your refills early (this includes at least some controlled substances bc we were able to get Lozepam refilled this way once)
If you can, then all the medicines from your prior refill are now extra and can go into emergency supplies.
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Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •Okay, that's what I've got, but there may be other things you can do.
If you can, talk with your doctor, pharmacist or caseworker. Tell them you need help getting the recommended emergency supplies, they may have more ideas.
You probably won't be able to get a full supply of ALL your medicines, at least not quickly. But you can get started and get some of them.
Jess Mahler
in reply to Jess Mahler • •The real pain is if your medicine schedule is still in flux. Don't know how often I've finally gotten a month's worth of one medicine and then the dosage got changed or it got dropped.
But it can be done.
Good luck!
פייגעלע
in reply to Jess Mahler • •Love these tips but there's one thing I'd like to add:
Once you have an emergency supply of medications make sure you use them before they expire. I like to use the old bottle and put the new bottle into the emergency stash every month. That way the meds never get old.
Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
in reply to Jess Mahler • •between several of these things, I'm pretty set on everything except (sigh) my thyroid and ADHD meds (i.e., if I'm stuck in the house for more than 2 weeks, I'm going to be a lump
I should try that with thyroid.
I've moved to 90-day refills on everything too (less plastic).
I have 2 scripts of my anti-anxiety meds & the pharma keeps filling both of them as if I take them both daily, so, well. I stash them. FIFO, of course.
quarantined pizzacat
in reply to Jess Mahler • •Kimberly A. Riley
in reply to Jess Mahler • •thanks for this! Been working for years to make sure I have an extra month of pills around.
Irony is that insurance won’t pay for a 3 month script, because I might use it to make meth, which is what has let me build up the stash faster, because my pharmacy fills it a few days early every month.
Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
in reply to Jess Mahler • •D. Moonfire
Unknown parent • •Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •I want either a generator or a windmill with battery backup. (It's quite windy; we're the highest spot between two lakes.)
But well water means no water at all if the power is out, save what we have in gallon jugs/in the brita, etc.
(Our cats drink bottled water.... )
Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder
Unknown parent • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder • •I got lucky some years ago and found a relatively cheap (for the time) kit with a small portable solar panel, 7Ah battery and battery electronics; the panel is amorphous, which is nice for this application (less efficient overall, but also works in the shade), and it's just enough to power a small laptop through a significant outage.
Of course, it doesn't help with the rest of the house, including heating, cooking, etc., but... priorities, right? :D
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Lyn Who Was Always a Thorn Alder • •Could you also add a human-powered pump? My only experience is with a case where water only needs to be raised some 2-3 meters (and that's pretty easy), I have no idea how hard it would be for a typical well.
Reading the rest of the thread, however, a generator or equivalent sounds like a good idea anyway.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
Unknown parent • •To keep things cool there are a number of solutions, including cellars and pot-in-pot refrigerators. Keeping things *cold* is a whole different matter, however.
Heating stuff is easier, as long as some sun is available: solar ovens can bring water to tea brewing temperatures, and a black bag should be enough to get water warm enough for comfortable showers. Neither work really well when the sun is partially covered, however.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •ratiocination likes this.
ops witch
Unknown parent • •Nightman-core
in reply to Jess Mahler • •Nightman-core
Unknown parent • •