Fish antibiotics for humans?

Winston Smith - December 12, 2020

Does anyone stockpile fish antibiotics?  For years I’ve heard they’re the same thing as human antibiotics.  I plan to stock up in the next few weeks. I understand this guy is pushing his book, but the information is very useful.

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Clinician and contributor here. Here’s my take: The drugs may or may not be identical, but it’s virtually impossible to know what you’re treating without identifying the pathogen through microscopy or lab tests–and it’s not wise to treat empirically. You need to know which drug the pathogen is susceptible to if you want to treat the infection effectively. Currently if you’re being treated empirically and the infection is not responding to treatment, samples are sent to a lab, petri dishes are swabbed with your cultured pathogen, and discs impregnated with varying antibiotics are placed–after a short time it’s evident which agent needs to be used. Any old primary care provider can set this up. It’s okay to treat empirically while waiting for lab results, but unless society has collapsed and there’s no hope of identifying the precise agent needed you’d just be fueling intractable infections through ineffective treatments or by intensifying antibiotic resistance. MRSA ain’t gonna be helped by fish penicillin. TL;DR–in the Apocalypse yes, if alternatives exist no. Also, I suppose someone has to have done the prepping if we needed fish abx on the shelf, but I think the most likely scenario is that the fish drugs expire before being the safest choice. 

 

This is related to the OP.  It deals with the expiration dates of drugs.  Interesting.

https://youtu.be/haLgSSKjER0

 

Over the years, I have seen many preppers get fish or bird antibiotics. With most coming back and citing this guy. 

I am not a doctor, and even though from what I have seen, that these are the exact same pills, dosages, and quality of human antibiotics, I want everyone to use good judgement and would highly recommend consulting a doctor. Most doctors will not look into the facts and will just straight away tell you it is a bad idea probably though. 

I do not recommend using fish or bird antibiotics in a society is normal scenario. Always go for the product that is proven and meant for human use under the care and direction of a doctor. 

You need to be extremely knowledgeable about antibiotics before you just go out and buy some. Antibiotics are meant to treat certain parts of your body and ailments. You don’t want to be taking antibiotics meant to treat head and upper body injuries if you have an infected toe. You need to be able to diagnose if you truly have something bacteria related where an antibiotic would be useful, otherwise you are hurting your gut (most kill all good bacteria), and building a resistance that can harm you and prevent healing in the future. Knowing the correct dosage and how long to take them is also tricky. For all these reasons, I do not know enough about antibiotics to trust myself enough to diagnose and take them properly, so I am personally not storing these.

But I can see some value in these in a true SHTF the grid and society is not coming back and this is my last resort or I will die. Which hopefully and probably will not happen in our lifetime.

 

Great advice. Thanks for the reply.

 

I have used fish antibiotics several times for infections in myself. They’re just labeled for fish, but are the same products made by the same companies, in 250 and 500 dosages. They successfully treated my infections. It’s the same for Ivermectin.

 

I looked up recommended amounts and protocols on the Internet. I had a tooth infection two years ago, looked up what specific antibiotics were recommended and found among the ten fish antibiotics I had. Same for an infection on my hand last May. Both times they were successfully treated and I had no problems.

 

Thanks so much. Plan to stock up on them.

 

Winston, are you evacuating with your pet piranha, barracuda and short-fin Mako shark to the emergency shelter at Hilton Head that has a co-located animal shelter ?  … Just joking ! Just jok …

Besides my complete agreement with Gideon’s above commentary, let me add the business aspects.  If you self-medicate with the fish pharma, will you have business complications with, for example, a health care insurance policy ? Medicare ? VA ? MedicAid ?  Do think this out. The implications can be enormous.

For an evacuation, I’ve mentioned to keep a document pouch with proof of ownership for serial number gear like binoculars, RX prescription copies.

It’s not covered by the annual “wellness” Medicare exam (I tried) but still get an exam and load up on prescribed RX stuff for home and evac.

Hope you’ve recovering from the chemo.

 

Thanks for the humorous and helpful comments, Bob.  Yeah, I’d only take animal pharmaceuticals in an emergency (SHTF) and only if they were the only drugs available.  I’m too much of a germophobe to take anything that’s potentially harmful. After taking a microbiology class in college and cooking on a sub for 4 years, I’m extra careful with eating foods. I’ve always believed that when people think they have a viral infection, many actually have a mild form of food poisoning.  

Good idea on loading up on RX meds.  I’ve saved most of my pain killers over the last few years and have a healthy stash.  

Thanks for the kind comment about the chemo.  No issues.  I’m a Stoic, so I usually don’t worry about things I can’t control.  

Stay safe and best wishes.

 

You were a cook on a sub!? You can’t just leave it at that. Tell us more!

What was it like being underwater for long periods of time? Are the subs like little functioning cities? How long could you have stayed underwater with fuel, food, water, etc..? Did they have portholes/windows that you could look out of?

 

I was on an old fast-attack diesel sub.  The camaraderie was great, the living conditions had something to be desired.  I still have many good friends from the boat and we stay in touch after 50 years.

We’d stay under water from a week to 6 weeks, snorkeling at night to charge the batteries.  We were allowed a shower a week.  Guess that’s why they were called pig boats.  

Pretty much everyone had a job to do and the rest of the time was spent playing cards, reading, writing letters, and complaining about being away from home.  We had around 100 people on board.  I’d guess the average age was 26.  By far, most were my age 18-22.  

Most never changed clothes when we were at sea.  Strange how we acclimated to the smell.  I slept over a torpedo and the bunk above me was so close, to turn over, I’d have to get out and get back in.

Had a few mishaps, but all-in-all, it was great.  I saw a lot of the world and made unbelievable friends and memories.  

Pig boats are nothing like the subs of today.  Today’s subs stay under longer, but the room, living conditions, and entertainment factor has greatly improved.  We had a reel-to-reel Teac tape deck in the galley that played (when the young people were there) The Who, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Grand Funk Railroad, Three Dog Night, and of course CCR.  Then a chief would come in, cuss about that GD hippie music, and change the reel to Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, and Willie Nelson.  Then the chief would leave and we’d put back the other reel.  

Oh, nothing to see except pipes, motors, and the color gray.  Even after all these years, when I smell diesel oil, I think of the boat.

Thanks for asking, but you know…… : )

 

Thank you for sharing! Man, I don’t know if I could do the one shower a week with so many men in a tight space. And that bed sounds horrible. I’m not claustrophobic, but felt it a bit while reading your story.

 

Clinician and contributor here. Here’s my take: The drugs may or may not be identical, but it’s virtually impossible to know what you’re treating without identifying the pathogen through microscopy or lab tests–and it’s not wise to treat empirically. You need to know which drug the pathogen is susceptible to if you want to treat the infection effectively. Currently if you’re being treated empirically and the infection is not responding to treatment, samples are sent to a lab, petri dishes are swabbed with your cultured pathogen, and discs impregnated with varying antibiotics are placed–after a short time it’s evident which agent needs to be used. Any old primary care provider can set this up. It’s okay to treat empirically while waiting for lab results, but unless society has collapsed and there’s no hope of identifying the precise agent needed you’d just be fueling intractable infections through ineffective treatments or by intensifying antibiotic resistance. MRSA ain’t gonna be helped by fish penicillin. TL;DR–in the Apocalypse yes, if alternatives exist no. Also, I suppose someone has to have done the prepping if we needed fish abx on the shelf, but I think the most likely scenario is that the fish drugs expire before being the safest choice. 

 

I agree with Stephanie. I seem to get urinary tract infections quite often and every time I go to the doctor about it, they do a culture to see what strain of bacteria it is and what would be the best antibiotic to combat it. You don’t want to be taking antibiotics that are not effective against the strain you have, because that will just build up a resistance. And once you build up a resistance to antibiotics and get another infection, you are done for.

 

You should get Stephen Buhner’s books on herbal treatments for viruses (including Covid) and antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases like MRSA. There are extremely effective alternatives. And you can research everything on the Internet, including specific antibiotics recommended for specific conditions, dosage, and frequency. In a prepper emergency, you won’t have access to a doctor, so should prepare beforehand.

 

Thanks, Stephanie.  Wise words. I would never take drugs unless prescribed by a doctor and filled by my pharmacist.  My intent in the OP was questioning the trustworthiness of the drugs in a SHTF situation. 

 

I am disabled with MS but get no government assistance nor do I have any insurance. Older antibiotics are cheap, but ten minutes with a doctor costs several hundred dollars. I looked oral infections up on the computer two years ago and found a recommendation of three antibiotics, one of which I had, and it also gave the standard dosage and schedule. It worked and I saved several hundred dollars.

I discovered that I had MRSA last summer. I took two weeks of Keflex for it, but the worst lesion still wasn’t completely healed and was still painful. I had a book by the herbalist Stephen Buhner on Herbs for Antibiotic-Resistant Infections. He recommended tincture of cryptolepsis. I ordered it and it performed miraculously well. I still take half a dropperful a day: if I don’t, within a couple of weeks tiny scans start appearing on my arms again, disappearing when I start taking it again.

Everyone must make up his own mind, but many preppers are into herbal and alternative medicine. I have had good luck with what I have tried: if they didn’t work and I got a lot worse, I’d consider alternatives. If, of course, an emergency situation emerged, we’d be happy we had fish antibiotics and other supplies on hand.

 

Our health care system is broken. 

 

You’re right about that! I could tell you a tale. Many tales. I went to a doctor in Mexico City last year in the neighborhood where the friends live that we stayed with in the Prado Vallejo. The doctor had a small office on the street in a residential neighborhood, the door between the waiting room and the street was left open, and green trees and flowers were just steps away. Mothers came in holding small children. The doctor was very nice, very cheerful, prescribed Tafil for sleep right away, and charged the equivalent of thirty dollars for the visit. Just like the way it used to be here. If travel were allowed, that’s where I would go for hospitalization.

 

I’ve been wanting to get into growing my own survival herb garden and know how to use each of the herbs to treat different things. One day that may be the only pharmacy available.

 

I think at that point people who were good at it would be growing and selling them at farmers’ markets. I know an Indian woman who grows her own turmeric and ashwagandha, she sells drinks made with them at the farmers’ market. She said just last week someone asked her why the death rate from Covid in India was much lower than rates in the US and Brazil. She said everyone in India is knowledgeable in the use of herbs and every family makes an herbal brew every day which they drink. The government also distributes packs of certain drugs (which may not be named) and vitamins to everyone, so they can treat Covid as soon as the first symptoms appear. Look at the charts at Worldometers to see how surprisingly low their mortality is for their case numbers.

 

I just did a Google search and India has had less than 500 covid deaths for the past five days. Pretty crazy compared to the US’s 3000+/day. And even more when you compare India’s population of over a billion and the US’s of 300 million.

I’m sure there are many factors that go into everything, but at first glance, that seems like quite a difference percentage wise of the population. 

 

Yes. I think there are two explanations. As my friend said, every family in India brews kadha tea every day and everyone drinks it. It has turmeric, ashwadandha, tulsi, cloves, and several other ingredients. There are a lot of recipes and information about it on the Internet. I had never heard of it until she told me about it in September when we were discussing India’s surprisingly low death rate.

Also, I just saw a photograph today of the cardboard card which apparently the government of India is giving to all its citizens. It has h… and I… tablets attached to the card, with dots to show how many days they’re supposed to take one a day. To overcome the problem of illiteracy? It also has tablets of an antibiotic and C and D3. Probably zinc, I don’t remember. All with graphics indicating schedule. Giving them out beforehand allow people to self treat as soon as they get symptoms, which is when they are most effective.

A third thing is that the Indian government advised the population to take some specific homeopathic remedies. Regardless of the official stance against it in the US, I’ve personally seen it effect amazing almost immediate cures several times.

You’d think Western countries would take heed and learn from what India has done, but the conventional Pharma industry has too high a hold on them to allow that.

 

Hey, Cia. I’m sorry for your MS and MRSA.  Not something easy to go through.  A quote in Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is “Life is ephemeral and full of tragedy” is sadly so true.   

I do believe herbal and alternative medicine is helpful in many cases.  I started eating Moringa powder and seeds a few months ago. I haven’t seen a noticeable difference in how I feel, but I’m sure I don’t eat enough of it.  [It doesn’t taste like a Krispy Kreme Donut]  I did plant a few Moringa trees in the backyard and in a bucket.  They did great until the weather dipped below freezing last week.  

Good luck and I hope things work out for you.

Picture of some of my Moringa trees planted in a bucket.  I gave the bucket to my brother to transplant.  His goose ate all the leaves.  : )

 

What are Moringa powder and seeds used for? Is it easy to grow?

 

I ordered a pack of Moringa seeds from Amazon.  I like to peel the nut part from the seed and eat them.  It has a strange, but good taste. (first it’s bitter and then sip some water and it turns sweet).  I planted some of the seeds and they all germinated.  

Below are two videos on Moringa:

YouTube video on benefits:   https://youtu.be/NZ5WP0wLzFs

How to grow:   https://youtu.be/0biAkGtkCf4

 

Thank you for sharing those links! I’m sure @Redneck would be interested in this too if he hasn’t see it before.

Moringa seems like a easy to care for plant that has many benefits. Could be a good way to get started into medicinal plants.

 

Thanks, I’ll research it!

 

Yes, I store multiple ones to be used as a last resort in a SHTF event.

 

One of my favorite quotes is from J.B.S. Haldane: “My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose.”   I think this would apply to a SHTF world.