“This word you are using, I do not think it means what you think it means.” 😉
If I can share a couple of thoughts here. As a paramedic for many years, I’ve seen my share of over use of antibiotics in the hospitals. I think we WAY over use antibiotics in agriculture and in human medicine. They are incredibly useful when appropriate, but their over use is minimizing their effectiveness. Even if you don’t misuse them, the food we eat or water we drink may be building an immunity to them. The bacteria themselves are becoming immune. MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) used to scare the heck out of me, but over time, I realized if I washed my hands regularly, the risk was minimal. Guess what, most of us are covered in staph bacteria right now! Remember SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)? It was a really nasty bug in Asia. They beat it by implementing rigorous hand washing of all staff who interacted with the infected pt’s. They didn’t find a vaccine. They isolated the sick pt’s and just washed their hands well. I read of a young lady in Africa who treated her entire family infected with Ebola virus and she only wore dishwashing gloves on her hands, trash bags on her feet and bleach bath to clean as she went in and out of the room.
All of that said, I think we over use anti-bacterial gels and soaps. We are phobic about germs to the point that we have weakened our own immune systems and made ourselves more susceptible to illness. Nothing wrong with getting outside and playing in the dirt.
SELCO talks about the importance of wound care or lack of in a SHTF scenario. Think about what you can do to avoid the injury / infection in the first place. Daisy, I’ll bet your black widow bite hurt! I lived in a house that was infested with brown recluses and a few black widows in the past, but never (thankfully!!!) got bitten. Avoid the injury if you can. Wear protective clothing when appropriate. Stock up on work gloves, etc. But, after the fact when you’ve been injured: a cut, a scrape, a puncture, clean it and treat it. Think about putting some Steri strips in your First Aid kit for larger lacerations that don’t quite need stitches. Some injuries require oral or IV antibiotics that you will need quickly. Most, can be handled with soap and water. Clean it. Dry it. Apply a small amount of antibiotic ointment ie: Bacitracin, Neosporin, etc. Keep it covered, change the dressings as needed and and it should heal.
There are many essential oils that are good for antiseptic washes. I’m a HUGE fan of Emu oil for wound care. It is truly a miracle cure for healing the skin in many cases (don’t use it for poison ivy, oak, sumac, etc.). It works great for fire ant bites and promotes healing. Honey is a great aseptic salve to promote curing and is even used in hospitals for wound care and healing burns. There are several over-the-counter cleansers like Hibiclense (chlorhexidine) that work great. I’m also a big fan of Dial soap, but I’d happily use home made grandma’s home made lye soap too.
So goes the old saying ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!’