Savlon vs Germolene vs Neosporin vs Chloramphenicol

[Janne]

If I may go back on topic, there is a reason soldiers in the firld are required ( by most armies worldwide) to shave and keep up a good hygiene.

A clean body that gets injured has a lower risk of getting infected.

For bushcrafters I would say the body parts with the highest rish of injury are the feet and hands.
Wash those.
Cut a clean finger - low risk for infection. If your finger is dirty, and you cut yourself, no amount of Iodine, Chlorhex or AB cream can remove the bugs you pushed inside you.

 

[Toddy]

I have lived all my life with the NHS as the normal medical care. It's free at point of need. In my country we don't even pay for prescriptions. We pay our National Insurance and we don't fret about health care costs. Most folks don't bother with private insurance, though it's becoming more common as part of the 'work package'. Audiology and hearing aids are free, (and they are top of the range, world class instruments, tiny and very discreet) as are the check ups, the adjustments and the batteries. Eye tests are free and many get part of the costs of spectacles covered by the NHS too.

Dentistry used to be the same. I still have an NHS Dentist, and she's very good. There are some things though that the NHS does not cover with the Dentist though, and I admit that it comes as a surprise to have to mind and take my purse with me to pay the bill. I don't grudge it, the lady earns her living honestly enough and compared to American teeth the ones around here are every bit as good, just that we generally don't bleach them and we don't really like all those little caps that ping off, so we avoid those. Neither of my sons, now in their thirties have any lost teeth or have any fillings. They do have very attractive natural smiles good sound teeth, and they've never been to a private Dentist in their lives.

There's a tremendous amount of slagging off gets done agin the NHS....yet funnily enough most of it stems from those who make money from providing private health care of one kind or another. On the ground, here, it works and it works very well indeed.
Our healthcare is socialised, everybody pays for it, it's well named National Insurance, and everybody can access it as necessary.
Look for the agenda behind the propaganda !

It's not so very long ago that it finally dawned on me that elsewhere in the so-called First World, people really do go without health care because they, "cannot afford it". To us that is a horrendous thought, to be unable to get medical care for cancer and the like, or to do so and end up in so much debt that families become homeless. Terribly British/ northern European of us, but there it is.

Those two books were recommended sometime in the early years of the forum, and at least one missionary I know says that the Where there is no Doctor one is literally a lifesaver. Another friend works with MSF and again, wholeheartedly approves of the book and the ethos behind it; that local on the ground healthcare people are welcome to freely download and use, and contact and advise on changes, etc., too. Inclusive not exclusive.

Good to hear about the Dentistry one too. Many of the skeletons that we find from the Neolithic onwards have real problems with teeth/abcesses, etc.,
Something to do with the suddenly heavily biased carbohydrate rich diet and poor tooth cleaning perhaps ?

M

 

[petrochemicals]

Iodine preparations are superb to wash wounds. Also use to decontaminate the skin before an operation.

Hydrogen peroxide, 3% to 10% is fantastic in cleaning out debris from wounds.

Tincture of iodine may also give a small heart attack in my experience.

There are two common iodines, the tincture, which is fierce and kills everything, including your skin, dries the flesh etc, i would not reccomend using it on deep wounds as it will hamper healing, kill flesh and possibly set up areas for infection.

The other is providone iodine, the one they use in sugery for dis infecting skin, alot lot less harsh.

And the hydrogen peroxide I cant think would be gentle.

Take no anti septic at all unless you are currently using it or are on an expedition without hope of contact, by the time your cut becomes infected you should be home/medically supplied anyway. Anti septics are only any good if there is septic stuff already. Best way to stop it getting infected is to keep it clean, ie bathe it in salt, let it breathe, dress it. Your body will have lots more sucess in the short run dealing with a wound without you sticking additives into it. If you get a thorn stick in you it can be better to open it up and clean it out rather than waiting for a painful infection.

The creams i would take would be savlon variaty though, as it soothes burns and insect bites, blisters (do not put iodine tincture on those!)

 

[Janne]

It depends on the concentration. Standard Iodine tincture is 2%, the Hydrogen Peroxide is 3%.

On the skin the tincture will be fine, in fact it is used before every op.
The 3% H2O2 is fine on skin wounds, but needs to be filuted 50/50 for a mouth wash.

H2O2 has one nice effect, it physically bubbles away dirt.

Buy I think the same as you - let your body take care of the healing. It is designed to do that.

 

[Janne]

One very useful wound wash we all carry is - do not laugh! - urine.

 

[Janne]

One agent my parents svore by is hypermangan. On wounds, abd mum used to wash the chickens in it before she cooked them.

 

[Toddy]

Years ago we were advised just to carry vaseline. It's sterile, it keeps the wound clean and the skin soft and flexible.
I have no idea why, but cuts and grazes heal well using it and leave no, or virtually no, scarring either.
Just make sure you clean out the wound thoroughly before applying it.

For bushcrafting types it's an awfully useful substance. It's a good lipsalve, it stops chaffing and blistering, it doesn't stink like tcp or germolene, doesn't burn and sting like iodine or Hydrogen peroxide, and it comes in really handy wee tins that fit tidily in a pocket without leaking or squishing, so they're kept to hand. It's also a really good firestarter too

M

 

[mrcharly]

My experience of working in a dirty (farming) environment is that the iodine is brilliant. We would get cuts on hands and feet (I worked barefoot a lot), wash off, put iodine on it (always present for treating livestock) and it was good. Sometimes dirt would get forced back into a cut and it would start to get infected, red, inflamed, pus - wash it clean, iodine again and the infection would clear up. Just washing the dirt off didn't do the job.

It was the same with livestock. We'd clean and bandage wounds, but the bandages would get knocked off or shaken loose. Cleaning and iodine did the job of keeping infection at bay.

Mercurochrome was used in schools and by doctors. I believe that has been replaced by chlorohexadrine (sp?)

 

[Toddy]

I have to ask, where did you work barefooted in farmyards around livestock ?

I'm an archaeologist and I had to endure the misery of tetanus vaccinations because farmsites are considered huge health hazards.

M

 

[mrcharly]

Australia. It was a horse stud as well. Every time I stood on a rusty nail, the doc gave me a tetanus booster - I think I had about 5 by the time I was 16, then they gave me one because I had bad burns (again, on the farm) and my arm blew up like a rugby ball. Told me I was sensitised to the antitoxin and mustn't risk having another shot ever.

 

[Janne]

So now you wear shoes?

It is rare to get sensitive to the tetanus shot. You should get tested again, to confirm it. If you still are, just be extremely careful not to get a possible infection!

 

[mrcharly]

lol I started wearing 'lastic sides boots (Aussie work boots) when I had to do heavy digging work a lot of the time; can't do that barefoot. These days I work in an office, but I still wear the same sort of boots!

 

[Toddy]

So now you wear shoes?

It is rare to get sensitive to the tetanus shot. You should get tested again, to confirm it. If you still are, just be extremely careful not to get a possible infection!

I am another who reacts badly to the tetanus vaccination. My Doctor said, when the second of what was supposed to be a run of three, blew my arm up like a red hot goose egg, "Well you're not having any more; I don't know how bad another one might be". Not funny, especially with my job.
Tetanus and anthrax, both downright nasty

M

 

[Janne]

I feel with you. I myself am immunised against Hep A, B, TB and a couple of ’exotics’ and to get full protecion need booster jabs.
I reacted against Hep A and TB injections, badly.
Docs in Miami told me I could have the injections in hospital environment in case I get a fullblown Anaphylactic reaction, but not thanks!

They said it could be the brand, the tech how they are made and so on, but I am not risking.

I am highly allergic to bee venom. Used to carry an epi pen and tablets.
Few bees here or where I go in Scandinavia so I only carry tablets now. High dose antihistamines.

 

[Toddy]

I wondered about the carrier medium of the vaccines. I had my first flu jab last year, since my GP reckoned the RA was bad enough that adding flu into the mix was a very bad idea indeed.
My arm swelled up, was aching sore and red hot to the touch for nearly a fortnight. It was uncomfortable for another couple of weeks and still hard to the touch. The needle's track mark was visible for a couple of months.
I'm not to have another one of those vaccinations either.

So, is it the actual vaccine, or whatever they prepare it in so that it can be injected ? I'm of the generation that had the smallpox vaccine in infancy. The children's ones didn't take and eventually my GP gave me the adult booster one when I was three. I have a scar the size of a 5p coin....when most folks have ones a several cms across. His comment then was that I was never going to die of smallpox but why did those ones not cause any hassle, but the modern ones do give me grief ?

Anyway, we've rather gone really off topic now

How about alcohol as the cleaning and sterilising fluid ? It sterilises water too even as a small measure....a bottle of whisky is enough to sterilise a waterbutt, so it's not as though drunken-ness is an issue.

M

 

[Janne]

Alcohol is good, very good. Stings a bit, but stings less if you have a taste first to check if it has not gone off!

70% ethanol. Stronger and you will burn the tissues inside the wound to much ( and your throat) .

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

The doctors I've know up here tell us that washing wound with soap and water is good for wounds and that remidies such as oils and stuff from pharmacy can sometimes delay healing. Most of my family group or hunting partners don't generally don't bother with anything if we get small wounds or cuts. It always makes me smile when some of the younger folk go to medical centre and get vaccinated. The nurse insists on putting band aid on the hole yet outside we can get bitten many times by black fly, mosquitoes and other biting bugs which draw blood - but no band aids for those creatures.

 

[Broch]

It all depends on the extent of the wound of course but all my training has insisted that a cleaned wound (washed with soap and water as Joe says) should be lightly covered to allow it to 'breath' but prevent infection without any creams or lotions that can harbour germs. There are a number of natural plant materials that speed wound healing but can cause problems if the wound heals over very fast and traps infection within. I reserve the use of aloe vera for those annoying splits and nicks on the end of fingers that never seem to want to heal when out in the wilds; apply aloe vera and they're gone in a couple of days. Aloe vera is in my personal trekking first aid kit but you won't see me applying it to a stranger needing first aid

The other thing that was driven into me was that a cut on the foot was more likely to lead to fungal infection if covered up and no amount of Germolene would deal with that!

Interestingly I note that some of the 'pro's' on this forum (that I know of) are not entering into this debate

Cheers,
Broch

 

[Janne]

Life is about minimizing risks. I would say the largest risk for damage of yourself is your bladed tool. Correct?
If you get cut by a dirty ( ‘infected’ ) tool you are risking introducing pathogens fully deep into the wound. The classic ‘a good scrub using soap and water’ should remove most.

But what I think should be done also is to clean the bladed tool after each use.
You do not want old, dried in bacteria laden crap transmitted from the tool into the wound.

Dirty old socks can infect a burst blister. Change to clean socks daily.

Prevention of an infection is better than curing an infection.

 

[Wayne]

Generally I teach a wound on expedition should bie washed with drinking quality water and soap 3 times. Ideally irrigated with pressure from a water bottle or a large syringe. PPE should be worn.

Deep incisions are not closed but packed with a sterile clean dressing soaked in drinking quality water. Then bandaged. To prevent contamination and deep anaerobic bacterial infections. Each evening I would check the wound change the dressings until I can get casualty to definitive care.

Then proper wound management protocols can be followed including closure and IV antibiotics if necessary.