One thing that I haven't seen much of on survival sites and guides is the importance of carrying extra medication with you if you take a daily prescription. I have major depression/generalized anxiety disorder and take a few medications for it, two of them daily and one as needed. If I don't take them for a couple of days, I start getting withdrawals and not to mention a full dose of my depression/anxiety returning. If I were in a survival situation, withdrawals or strong depression would be a death sentence. I've read that a positive mindset is essential for survival (the will to survive) and depression alone would squash that.

It wasn't until recently that it dawned on me that I need to carry an extra supply of medication with me. Normally, I just have it in my medicine cabinet at home and take it at night. With some extra prescription samples from my doctor and some extra pills from days I forgot to take my meds, I put together a weeks worth of spare medication that I carry with me in the backpack I take just about everywhere with me. I put the pills into a pill key fob since it's a small container that holds the exact amount I need. I figured that a week would be just about perfect as I could ween myself off of it or stretch it out by taking smaller doses if I knew it needed to last longer than that. It is a relief knowing that I have it with me in case something happens.

I've carried a first aid kit, ibuprofen, and Tylenol with me daily in my pack, but I didn't carry my prescriptions. When I asked other people who I know take daily prescriptions, I found that very few people carried any extras in case they couldn't get home in time to take them (except for those with asthma and diabetes who usually have had enough scares to remind them.) The only time they took anything with them is when they knew they would be traveling and could put it in their suitcase.

I'm not writing this post so much as a nag to bring your meds with you, but rather to just bring up the topic and see what others do to prepare in that sense. Any tips, tricks, or insights?

I have some pain killers and antibiotics in my first aid kit. But my prescription meds I don’t worry about, none of them are life critical in the short term. I’m on meds for cholesterol & blood pressure, but they never were high to begin with so even if I went a month without them it’s not a big deal.

I carry 72 hours worth of my pain killers and High Blood pressure meds, plus Advil and Benydril in my EDC bag - there is another 2-3 days worth in my drawer at work. In addition, my little pocket tin has 1 days worth. I used my seal-a-meal to make up the packets

We've had some good discussions about prescription meds in the past. If you haven't tried searching the old threads already, a couple good ones were this or this where you might find some more useful or interesting ideas.

Knock on wood, I still don't need any prescription meds, but I should take notes because maybe some day I will.

The two threads mentioned will be a good start.

One thing to always keep in mind in planning for any survival scenario is to ask "what can kill me the fastest?" Then plan to avoid that (whatever it is) as the first priority.

Thus, in a desert, survival is first dependent of water, as you are likely to die of thirst before starving to death. In the arctic, warmth is number one, because you will freeze to death before you die of thirst. And so on. Doing something really, really, stupid will always kill you faster than anything else.

Think about meds the same way. A diabetic needs insulin to live, and must have a supply. OTOH, if your taking a "statin" because your Cholestrol is 250 without it, doing without it for a week or two or a month, probably will not kill you, even if it is not "good for you." So, I would not worry about taking a 2 month supply of lipitor with me at the cost of some spare insulin pens. . . Decide what meds you need to keep functioning, and which are only "good" for you, and prioritize.

as always, YMMV

Well said, bws48. Lipid metabolism, blood pressure regulation, depression and a host of other commonly treated chronic medical problems are associated with the stressors of every-day life, related to adrenaline secretion and stress responses better suited to dealing with saber-tooth tiger attacks than traffic jams and workplace annoyance. Survival emergencies may eliminate the stressors for which we are poorly adapted and which cause illness, and substitute stressors for which we are better adapted. This has an organizational parallel: every ER I have ever worked in worked better in a crisis (mass casualty incident, weather-related emergency, that sort of thing) than it worked day-to-day. Crises occasionally have an unanticipated upside.

In my uneducated strictly PERSONAL opinion,,,,,

I believe most Dr's would agree that a weaning off process will take 10-14 days at an absolute minimum.

Based on actual experience, talk to your Dr and explain that you would like to have an emergency stash and most will write you a prescription for a 10 day supply with no refill authorization, OR when you are due for a new prescription, they may write you a normal prescription times double dose so you can take the extra and make yourself an emergency stash. It greatly depends on how well your Dr knows and trusts you to do as you say you are going to do. It doesn't hurt to ask and I have yet to hear of a Dr laughing at a patient's concerns in such a matter.

That's how I got my 10 day supply of (broad spectrum) antibiotics that I carry with me when I deploy to work. I've used them once and let my Dr know when I used them and I scheduled an appointment as soon as I got back home. It is always prudent to have a follow-up visit after taking/needing those antibiotics. I also called his office prior to taking them and described my symptoms and asked if he thought it would be a good idea to take the antibiotics until I could get home.

Perhaps our Dr's down here are more understanding of the medication possibilities since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita brought the need for emergency meds to be on hand, more to the forefront.

Thanks for the links to those threads. Though I was just thinking about short term, those threads are a good reminder to make sure I have enough for longterm preparedness. Another thing that some of the posters brought up was the shelf life of some of the meds and to rotate them out. That's a good thing to keep in mind as well.

On an even more basic level, carry band-aids, Tylenol and pepto-bismol.

The solution is quite simple, actually, and basically free.

Hike4fun in the older thread pointed this out, but it is important to understand. Instead of paying 100-200 dollars for the expensive extra month that your doctor wrote and your insurance won't pay for, just refill the med 6 days early. Bingo, a one week supply for emergency. Do it for 5 months and you have a 30 day emergency supply. Insurance companies almost always allow someone to refill when 80% of the time has passed, i.e. 24 days out of 30. By letting the insurance pay for the meds and just refilling them early, you are saving boatloads of money as well as developing an emergency supply.