yours,not someone else..in the realistic scenarios thread
Roarmeister brought up a good point..that nasty appendix..
has anyone ever thought about having it removed to prevent
a life threating problem when no or little medical help is
is at hand??..all the gear in the BOB will be worthless if
that appendix blows out in the backwoods..i have read that
massive doses of antibiotics will help but sooner or later
it will have to come out..

Mine came out at four, so I can't help you...

Er, self surgery isnt recommended. A little story:
I had heard on a captain in the Army who thought he was tough as nails. Well, he cut his arm open one fine day, and, thinking himself Rambo, decided to stitch himself up. He got to stitch #2, and passed out.
I have read that, in a wilderness environment, because it is almost impossible to keep an area sterile, if the surgery diesnt kill the patient, sepsis, or other massive infections, most likely will.

You either evacuate them or start digging a grave.

Appendicotomy = major abdominal wound.

If you are talking about doing it yourself after it ruptures, then no. Perhaps you are talking about having it professionaly done beforehand as a precaution? I might consider that if I were planning a solo around the world sailing trip, or an extended stay at McMurdo, or something like that.

not self-surgery but having it removed tomorrow so if you
had to take the BOB and run next year it would be one less
problem that you might have to deal with--i would think that
if you had to make a BOB run that, with all else going on,
a guy in the woods..under a tarp..with a belly
ache,alone, would not rate a chopper.."sorry..food to the
earthquake zone only..we have 100,000 there"..

Interesting strategy. Will the doctors take out a healthy appendix?

Also why not get all your teeth pulled & get some false teeth so you won't have to worry about tooth aches. :-) just kidding

I think it would be difficult to convince a doctor to remove a healthy organ "just in case." They get sued enough for taking out the unhealthy ones that actually are necessary.

I actually discussed this with my GP. He pointed out the risks of complication vs the number of people who spend thier whole lives with thier appendixes. That got me to thinking about the fact that I can't think of anyone in my family that doesn't still have thiers except for my sister-in-law, and the fact that the post op infection from when I had my tonsils done nearly killed me, so I stopped worrying.

I remember reading about somebody (George Mallory maybe?) who had their appendix out before some planned adventure but I can't for the life of me remember who it was. Or maybe it was some astronaut or cosmonaut. You are probably right about the difficulty of finding a doctor who will do it now though.