Epilepsy in PAW, TEOTAWIKI, SHTF

[EricinVirginia]

So, some of the fun things going on out there, but first the child and bracelets. I'm usually a bit out of it during a seizure and when recovering, but I've always asked and been told that a) were I wearing a bracelet, it would have affected nothing that happened or was happening in the treatment provided, and b) the first responders did not check for a bracelet. This is pre-PAW. I think the emblems are more for the comfort of friends and family who want to know that if they're not around, first responders and complete strangers would know to look for such a thing and somehow it modifies their behavior to be more appropriate and kind.

I was on a business trip a few weeks ago and had to go through the Detroit airport. The terminals are connected by an underground walkway that is filled with fiber optic lights. Funky sci-fi jazz music plays and the lights in the tunnel shift around. I am not triggered by lights but they do make me nauseauted and can lead to auras. Post-PAW, I will not miss this. My cell phone camera does not do it justice:


Surgery is getting better and better. At the Foundation walk in April, they were talking about using wires embedded in the brain to actually cool the brain down when a microchip detects abnormal brain activity. Very nextgen technology but still not a cure. Surgery only helps people with clearly defined areas of the brain causing the seizures. So, if you have seizures and they can isolate the exact trigger... I think you owe it to yourself to check t out.

[MarkTBSc]

There seems to have been a lot of doom-and-gloom in these postings. I'd like to try and encourage as much of a positive outlook as I can. I'm a big believer that the Kobyashi Maru does more harm than good.

In a way, the PAW is actually a safer place than the modern world for an Epileptic. After all, there isn't much chance of the individual in question being at the wheel of a car or the stick of an airplane when the attack hits. The slightly slower pace of the PAW lifestyle may make accidents less likely. You should be following a Buddy rule for all things so even if you fall face down in a puddle, there should be someone to help you up. Same goes for hunting. Now admittedly, the situations where things are most sensitive are also more likely to be situations that will trigger seizures, but there will be less artificial, neon, florescent or strobing lights after the world ends.

I'm thinking that the radical change in environmental conditions, from massively industrialized to primitive might even reduce the incidence of epilepsy due to less chemicals in the air, the food, a day/night/sleep/wake cycle more in tune with our biological set-ups, more exercise... I'm not sure there's ever been a study where city-dwellers with Epilepsy were thrown into the great outdoors with minimal high-tech supports. It might be unlikely but there is always the possibility that this radical change of everything might naturally retard seizure frequency.

I wonder... The active ingredients in people's medications... Might there be quantities of these chemicals, or equivalents, present in certain plants or animal organs such that it would be possible to at least render medical conditions non-fatal by increasing their use in a survival diet?

Chin up people. Just because the situation seems hopeless, that's no reason to give up without a fight.

[KnightoftheRoc]

There seems to have been a lot of doom-and-gloom in these postings. I'd like to try and encourage as much of a positive outlook as I can. I'm a big believer that the Kobyashi Maru does more harm than good.

In a way, the PAW is actually a safer place than the modern world for an Epileptic. After all, there isn't much chance of the individual in question being at the wheel of a car or the stick of an airplane when the attack hits. The slightly slower pace of the PAW lifestyle may make accidents less likely. You should be following a Buddy rule for all things so even if you fall face down in a puddle, there should be someone to help you up. Same goes for hunting. Now admittedly, the situations where things are most sensitive are also more likely to be situations that will trigger seizures, but there will be less artificial, neon, florescent or strobing lights after the world ends.

I'm thinking that the radical change in environmental conditions, from massively industrialized to primitive might even reduce the incidence of epilepsy due to less chemicals in the air, the food, a day/night/sleep/wake cycle more in tune with our biological set-ups, more exercise... I'm not sure there's ever been a study where city-dwellers with Epilepsy were thrown into the great outdoors with minimal high-tech supports. It might be unlikely but there is always the possibility that this radical change of everything might naturally retard seizure frequency.

I wonder... The active ingredients in people's medications... Might there be quantities of these chemicals, or equivalents, present in certain plants or animal organs such that it would be possible to at least render medical conditions non-fatal by increasing their use in a survival diet?

Chin up people. Just because the situation seems hopeless, that's no reason to give up without a fight.

Good points there- I wonder how you find out where the sources of chemicals used in drugs are? Aspirin was developed out of willow bark, when they found and isolated the active ingredient acetylsalicilic (sp?) acid, which naturally occurs in the tree's bark. Many of today's drugs are coming from plants in the rain forest. It can't ALL be coming from a chemistry set, can it?

[EricinVirginia]

The original epilepsy medicine - phenolbarbitol - was a derivative of barbituates. Someone with seizures noticed that their drug addiction calmed seizures. This was tested and refined through chemistry into this very first epilepsy drug. Most of these drugs comes from this up until about 10 years ago when pharma began looking at how anti-anxiety and neuropathway drugs (like prozac) impact other neurological and psychological functions. Some of these made seizures worst. Some made it better and all of the most recent new anti-seizure drugs are refinements of those. I doubt you can find things in nature that would help. Plant-wise, I've received some PMs about plant alternatives that would help with stress, sleeping better, etc and have not posted them here because we don't discuss illegal things on ZS. That being said, as a law-abiding citizen I have no idea where or how to find such things and have no interest in "prepping" around it. However, if you saw Resident Evil: Apocalypse you get an appreciation for how you can be on a suicide mission, surrounded by zombies, and have a smile on your face.

In this thread we've discussed both the post-PAW diet and destressing of the post-PAW world. For diet, I've personally benefited from removing sugars from my diet for the past 2 years. I've lost weight and have had less seizure activity. Insulin and blood-sugar levels impact ketones, which the brain uses for fuel... and there are a lot of studies that support this. The ketogenic diet discussion touched on it most directly. I think diet changes during SHTF will be consuming whatever you have handy and on hand. So food storage and prep plays a role there.

For destressing, I think that SHTF will be very stressful. The world shown in MadMax, Zombieland, The Road... these are places of unimaginable stress. Triggers for epileptic seizures (presumes you already have epilepsy) are, in this order from the Epilepsy Foundation: 1) Going on or off anti-seizure meds, 2) Stress, and 3) Lack of sleep. If you haven't been able to stockpile enough meds to make it through SHTF, then you're dealing with 1, 2, and 3 all at the same time. I can't even imagine how stressful it would be. Hell, right now, I'm looking at changing jobs, and the stress of that is affecting my sleep.

Now, if post-PAW looks like Swiss Family Robinson, Adventures of Robin Carusoe, or Fiddler's Green in Day of the Dead... that might be a very different place and story. If you get far enough into PAW and are surviving, I do think that things destress. Say the world rolls back to 1700s era tech and my sole concern is agrian. I think I'd be just fine even with seizures.

I started this thread to raise awareness on things you could do now to get through SHTF when issues 1, 2, and 3 are all hitting at the same time. Seizures are also a very common thing that happens in SHTF when:
- You have children and they get sick. Fevers can trigger seizures in anyone.
- You or someone in your group suffers head trauma. Assuming they recover, they very likely have an increased incidence of seizures.
- Drug overdoses, prolonged lack of sleep, dehydration, etc. And lions and tigers and bears.

Everyone around us during SHTF with a chronic lifelong medical condition should be looking at their preps with any eye towards making it through SHTF, developing skills that allow them to contribute as a survivor, and looking at what their survivorship might look like without medication and healthcare support services.

[EricinVirginia]

I thought I'd do an update to this thread given some recent questions from local ZS members.
- Why relevant? There are lots of us on different Rx meds for different reasons. For all intents and purposes, we're "addicted" to these meds as our physical state will most certainly change when the Rx is no longer available. For me, as an example, it takes 3 weeks to transition off of my seizure meds. And given that I've been on epilepsy meds since 1997, I have NO CLUE what my new normal might be. It's a different variable and one you might want to take into account if you're like me, you have family like me, or... one of the most common side effects of stress, trauma, malnourishment, food poisoining, fevers, and PAW-type conditions are <drum roll> SEIZURES.
- Absence seizures. In these, the person is basically there and sort of aware, but spacey. If someone in your group is like this, it's probably a sign of worse things to come. Have them sit down or lie down. Remove hard sensory stimuli if you can. Take the zombie whacker/impaler away from them. A friend of mine would space out and feel confined... she'd try to escape, usually by taking her clothes off. This was awkward a few times at church!
- Partial seizures. In these, part of the person's body is seizing. The person might be aware but truly, they are not.
- Total seizure. This is what everyone expects to see. There are 2 types to this... in one, the person might twitch or spasmodically jerk around. This will probably last a few minutes. Lay them down and try to keep them from getting hurt; there's not a whole lot you'll be able to do. Expect weird emotional acrimony when they come to afterwards. There's a 2nd type: paralytic. Unless you have injectable valium to break this, there's probably not a whole lot you can do. They'll either recover or not. The entire body seizes, sometimes lungs and others go into failure and you can suffer brain damage and die. This happened to me once. I had a date with my now-wife that I missed. After 30 min, she went to my apartment. My apartment was spotlessly clean. Dinner was burning on the oven. Metallica was playing at ear-bleeding volumes. I was lying face down partly on my bed rigid and unmoving. She called 911. EMTs broke the seizure with injectible valium. They tried smelling salts and apparently I came to briefly and tried to punch the EMT. I have no memory of anything other than coming to in a hospital. They estimate I was like that for at least 20 minutes, maybe longer because I had stopped sweating and was utterly dehydrated by the time they got there. Oddly, I've never lost bowel control. That's a head scratcher.

My seizures, controlled by meds, are few and far between. Each day I rate myself on a 1 to 10 scale (1 is normal/healthy and 10 is "Holy Shit! I'm about to collapse!"). I adjust my day's agenda to how I'm feeling. As I move up to an 8, I have what I'm going to call sensory distortion, or auras. For me, smells become unbearably strong, or light becomes unbearably bright, sound can be painfully crisp. Sometimes my sense of touch will get all weird or everything will taste like clay. This is how I know I'm a 9... and I'm not doing well. I'll actually cancel business meetings and end activities if I even think this is happening to me.

Light sensitivity only occurs for me when there are intense oscillations between very light and very dark. A tactical weaponlight in a pitch black cave would probably trigger me. 10 tactical lights would not, unless they were all oscillating at the same time... the ambient light created by differently timed oscillations would be fine.

[Tperkins]

Eric, I have to thank you for again bringing this thread to my attention. As I mentioned a long time ago, my younger brother has a very severe, yet controlled by many meds, epileptic disorder with severe allergies on top. I have thought about, and do, store EPI pens for this, but completley forgot about trying to store a few DiaStats (The injectable valium). This was a good reminder of that, so I thank you; I've also been contemplating printing this thread out for my parents to review, as they are his caretakers, but are not on board with my prepping.

Also, I figure it may be easier to ask then to read back in the topic; Have you found a good approach to storing your seizure meds or to the shelf lives of them? Depakote ER and Keppra are my brother's two most important ones, so a shot in the dark if you use the same.

[KnightoftheRoc]

I like the idea of rating yourself on the 1-10 scale- obviously, it works, as it's been working for you. Have you noticed any changes in seizure activity since the change in diet, that seems like it will remain as a long-lasting effect? Just curious how that's working out.

One thing I neglected to mention in my first post, was on the topic of stress. You made an excellent point of how it's a trigger, so I won't belabor it, but I have found that since I started a daily meditation practice, I suffer much less from stress, and also from seizures. I won't go into a big diatribe on meditation- there's plenty of articles on the web about it, one of which is even authored by me. Whatever method you use, the end results should be the same, so go with whatever works for you.

I'd like to know, though, who does meditate, and if they've seen a decrease in seizures that they attribute to the practice? I think mine is directly connected, but I won't completely dismiss the possibility that it's a coincidental occurrence. I'd like to think that a simple practice like meditating regularly could/would have such a benefit on physical health, like it has been linked to regarding heart health, for example. So, I guess I'm looking for independent sources to confirm or deny the theory.

[EricinVirginia]

I take Keppra. It's a miracle drug for me. With any drug, look at the label that comes with the Rx. It'll tell you how to store it. If it says store in a dry, dark, or whatever place, then those are the requirements. Walmart and other place sells a protein drink a large plastic tube. I've taken these and modified them for easy storage and transport. From United Nuclear, I've bought clear and amber 5 dram vials, which will hold about 20 pills.
- Wrap the protein drink threads with lots and lots of teflon tape (plumbing tape) to get a really good seal on the threads. Fill with water and toss it around. Heat it up. Cool/freeze it. If it leaks, don't use it.
- Insert meds into dram vials with a bit of cotton to prevent them from bouncing around.
- Put a drying dessicant pack into bottom of tube.
- Put dram vials into tube.
- Put cotton or, in my case for space, Tylenol in remaining space. Seal and tighten. Date it. Wrap duct tape around threads.
- The cotton is important because otherwise, the pills will jostle against each other and slowly erode their outer shell (the excipient). For effective dosing you need the excipient intact and you need the right dosage, not a bunch of powder. As such, add the pills. Add the cotton. Shake and then pack more cotton in.
- I keep 3 weeks of Keppra, 10 days of amoxicillin, and about 20 tylenol tabs in my IFAK this way. I have a tube in each BOB and then 3 lying around.
- It's not hard to get extra normal meds. Usually just talking to your doctor and asking will yeild free samples. There are other things you can do as well.

[KnightoftheRoc]

That tube is a pretty nice container- does United Nuclear sell to anyone, or is this a site that requires licensing? I'm not sure what you do for a living, or if that bears any on this. I'm going to check Wally world for the other one with the drink- got a brand name, to narrow my search down a bit with?

[dallas]

Here is a good tube.

http://www.countycomm.com/tubevault.htm

[EricinVirginia]

These Tubes from Walmart... of course you have to drink the protein and wash them out. The ones posted at countycomm are really good, crushproof, etc. Also, anyone can buy from United Nuclear. Be careful though, that site is like an addiction. They regulate quantities for certain items, like thermite, but all you get is a nice note from them saying you can't buy anymore in the current year.

[KnightoftheRoc]

They... sell THERMITE???


sorry, I'm trying to figure out why anyone would have a legitimate, legal use for thermite...

[EricinVirginia]

Yes, they sell thermite. And thermite ignition powder. And magnets that'll break your fingers. In short, United Nuclear is awesome. They also sell radioactive materials. Basically, they're a supply shop for chemistry labs. Wander around... rocket engines, death ray how-tos, I Heart United Nuclear. Their warehouse would be a wonderful TEOTAWKI BOL.

Legal use of thermite... it's pouring rain, you're freezing and you need to flash dry a pile of wood while also creating a nice thermal mass to keep a fire going. Viola! Thermite is really fun. If you've never played with it, you missed out.

[KnightoftheRoc]

I HAVE used thermite- in grenade form, which is why I was surprised it was even being sold, let alone LEGAL I'm definitely gonna have to chem them out- preferably at a time when I'm flat broke, so I won't go nuts spending...