Survival Medicine Hour #370: Amebiasis, Nailbed Injuries, Altitude Sickness

A fractured femur or a gunshot wound to the chest are major injuries that affect your chances of survival in disaster settings, but not all injuries are so extreme. “Minor” injuries can also impact the efficiency of a group member off the grid.  Of these, nailbed injuries are some you’ll commonly see. You can imagine that nailbed injuries will be more common when untrained (and perhaps careless) people perform tasks to which they’re not accustomed. Joe and Amy Alton describe various types of trauma and their treatments. The journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) reports that 33.5% of the population lives below an elevation of 100 meters above sea level. That means that there’s a possibility that you might have to abruptly relocate from a home at sea level to a “bug-out” location in the mountains. Too abruptly, though, and you can get sick. Joe Alton MD discusses acute mountain sickness and what to do to prevent and treat it. Also, the second greatest cause of death from protozoal parasites, after malaria, is amebiasis (amoebiasis), a condition caused by entamoeba hystolitica. This organism attacks various organs, sometimes the intestines, other times the liver, and elsewhere. Find out how to recognize and treat this terrible pathogen and various ways to disinfect water which may contain  it.  All this and more on the latest Survival Medicine Hour! Don't forget to get your medical kits and supplies from the many choices at store.doomandbloom.net! You'll be glad you did. Also, get a copy of our award-winning Third Edition of the Survival Medicine Handbook and our new bestseller Alton's Antibiotics and Infectious Disease: The Layman's Guide...