Sometimes being a woman is really the pits. I imagine it will be even worse in a post-SHTF society where our modern, quick-fix, take a pill for it remedies are no longer available. I’m talking about those dreaded conditions that are almost exclusively “women’s ailments”: yeast infections, vaginosis, vulvitis, UTIs, hemorrhoids, leaky bladders, migraines and menopause. Bleck! So what is the best way to prep for these lovely maladies? Like other areas of preparedness, we need to tackle this with a multi-step approach.
Knowledge: Know your body. You need to be able to recognize the warning signs of an impending ailment so that you can attempt to prevent a full-blown illness. Know your genetic predispositions and history. Ask your mother, grandmothers, and aunts about what female health conditions run in your family. Heredity is a funny thing and frequently cannot be avoided. While you may maintain a painstakingly rigorous “healthy lifestyle,” sometimes nature still throws that heredity-curveball at you. You might be young enough that many of these have not yet happened to you, but at least study up and be prepared to recognize and treat them if they occur (to you or others). In my family we get three main conditions: hemorrhoids, leaky bladders, and menstrual migraines. The first two can normally be treated by surgery and the last can be controlled by using birth control pills and prescription meds. But what will we do without access to routine medical care and medications?
Prepare: If there are medications you can get that you might need someday, GET THEM and stock up. You might never have had a yeast infection in your life, but if you live someplace hot and humid and suddenly your life has no A/C, infrequent baths and changes of clothing (because you are washing everything by hand!), you might have a serious run in with a yeast infection. Stock up on any OTC meds that you can. The other way to prepare is to not put off those elective surgeries (this seems to have been mentioned in plenty of other articles). These days both leaky bladders and hemorrhoids can be treated with surgery, but they are not ones that most of us would rush right out to get. I think you will find that surgery is preferred over living with the problem in a post-SHTF world. Last, maybe cleanliness IS next to godliness. Keeping clean and dry will prevent some of these conditions from starting in the first place. The military has been doing this for years…with feet. Every time they stop, they change their socks because it prevents a plethora of foot ailments. I say every time you sweat too much, change those undies. If you can’t stay cool, at least stay dry.
Take your knowledge a step further: None of these ailments are new. How did they treat these ailments in the past? Or how do they treat them now in third world countries? Look for “old school” remedies. Read up, research, ask someone very old who grew up in a rural environment what they did. For instance, yogurt is a common treatment for yeast infections (and I am not talking about eating it). And here I mean all natural, home-made, BASIC yogurt, not the flavored variety they carry in the grocery stores today. Culturing your own yogurt at home is actually pretty easy to do, but few Americans do it. Drinking cranberry juice works well for treating UTIs. There are “alternative” treatments for a number of ailments, but most of us have grown up in a society where these remedies have become obsolete due to our easy access to medications.
It will take time to research and practice these remedies before the SHTF. But it’s better to practice it now when you don’t need the remedy desperately. Like other types of medical care, it is best to study up long before the SHTF!
(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)