Maggots Use In Medicine

Ancient therapy making comeback as wound-healing option

These aren't your grandfather's maggots.

Maggot, or larval, therapy has been around since ancient times as a way to heal wounds. Now, the method has gone high-tech--in some ways--and it's being tested in a rigorous clinical trial at the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Gainesville, Fla. Recruitment is now underway.

The study involves veterans with chronic diabetic ulcers on their feet. The maggots feasting on the dead or dying tissue in their wounds--and eating germs in the process--have been sterilized in a pristine, pharmaceutical-grade lab. Instead of roaming free over the wounds, they are contained in fine mesh bags, and removed after a few days.

Welcome to maggot therapy, 2015.

"There's an eight-step quality-control process to how these medicinal maggots are produced," notes lead investigator Dr. Linda Cowan. "Every batch is quality-tested."

Cowan has a Ph.D. in nursing science and is a wound-care specialist with VA and the University of Florida. She has studied maggots in the lab, combed through the available research on them, and seen firsthand what they can do in wounds.

"As a clinician, I was very impressed by the literature on larval therapy. And sometimes we would have patients come into the clinic with what I call 'free range' maggots--they're not sterile, they're not produced specifically for medicinal purposes--the patients got them at home, unintentionally. But they really clean out the wound nicely."

Cowan, like other researchers, tends to prefer the scientific term "larvae" over "maggots," but they mean the same thing. The whitish worm-like creatures are young flies, before they mature into pupa and then into adults. For therapy, in most countries, the green bottle fly is the insect of choice.

Co-investigator Dr. Micah Flores, whose background is in entomology--the study of bugs--admits that "maggot" does have a negative connotation for most folks. "It can be a scary word," he says.

Cowan points out that in the study's recruitment flyer "we use the term 'medicinal maggots.' We want people to know these are not home-grown on somebody's windowsill."

The VA study will involve up to 128 Veterans. It's comparing maggot therapy with the standard of care for diabetic wounds--a treatment called sharp debridement, in which a health care provider uses a scalpel, scissors, or other tool to cut or scrape away dead or unhealthy tissue. The procedure promotes wound healing.

Nearly a quarter of VA patients have diabetes, and about a quarter of these will have foot wounds related to the disease. In many cases, the hard-to-heal ulcers worsen to the point where gangrene develops and amputation is required.

The Gainesville researchers will examine how well the wounds heal in each study group. They'll also look at maggots' effects on harmful bacteria. In addition to clearing out dead tissue, maggots disinfect wounds by ingesting bacteria and secreting germ-killing molecules. They also eat through biofilm--a slimy mix of micro-organisms found on chronic wounds.

Turn back the clock about 90 years, and there was a researcher who grew maggots on a hospital windowsill, as unscientific as that sounds. Dr. William Baer had treated U.S. soldiers in France during World War I and noticed that large, gaping wounds that were swarming with maggots--sometimes thousands of the creatures--didn't get infected, and the men survived.

Baer came back to Johns Hopkins University and experimented with the therapy, only to realize that maggots could spread disease as they devoured decaying tissue. Two of his patients died of tetanus. He made some progress with using sterilized maggots, but soon antibiotics would come on the scene and maggot therapy--with its high yuck factor--fell into disregard.

"Antibiotics were the new cure-all, and so we didn't need the maggots around too much anymore," says Cowan. "But they've never gone away completely."

A few studies took place in the U.S. in the ladder half of the last century, including some at the VA Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif. But it wasn't enough to place maggots in the pantheon of modern medical miracles. Meanwhile, the therapy continued to attract interest in the United Kingdom, where a game-changer occurred a few years ago. A Wales-based company called BioMonde came out with the bag concept, which caught Cowan's attention right away.

She had been interested in studying maggot therapy. But she also realized that many clinicians, as well as patients--and their caregivers at home, who would have to change dressings--might have a hard time warming up to the idea.

"When we started talking about doing this study," says Cowan, "we were interested in the yuck factor. One of my concerns was other clinicians. They have to deal with this. They may be turned off by what I call the squirmy wormies."

Cowan recalls one nurse colleague who would recoil when patients showed up in the clinic with wounds that had attracted a few maggots.

"She just had an aversion to larvae of any kind. When a patient would come in, and they would have these free-range maggots, she would not want to deal with them. She would come and get me, and I would take care of it.

"I realized she wouldn't be the only clinician out there who would feel like this. So I thought this product would really make a difference."

That said, Cowan believes many patients are undeterred by the insects, bags or no bags. She tells of one veteran who has been struggling with a non-healing diabetic ulcer for three years. "He said he is willing to try anything that might work."

That attitude is not uncommon among those with diabetic sores, says Cowan, although she senses that veterans, as a group, may be a bit less squeamish than the general population, and thus even more receptive to the therapy.

"When we go through the informed consent form with them, we explain the study and we tell them they could be randomized to the 'sharp' group, which is the standard of care, the same kind of debridement they've gotten in the past--or they could get the maggot therapy. We've done about 21 informed consents so far. Overwhelmingly, people have been disappointed if they weren't randomized to the maggot group."

BioMonde, the company sponsoring the trial, has said it will provide maggots for up to two weeks of treatment for any patient who did not receive the therapy during the study but wants it, and whose physician believes it would be appropriate.

Both groups in the study will receive treatment over the course of eight days. Along with studying the veteran patients and their wounds, the researchers will survey their caregivers and clinical providers. "One thing we want to find out," says Cowan, "is whether this yuck factor is really an issue. And who is it the greatest issue for? Patients? Clinicians? The wife or husband who has to change the dressing?"

To examine the main study outcome, the team will photograph each wound before and after each treatment. Then, wound-care experts who are blinded to which therapy was used--maggots or sharp debridement--will visually assess how much viable versus non-viable tissue remains.

Just as important, the team will study the therapies' effects on biofilms. A biofilm is not a movie about someone's life--it's a soupy mix of bacteria and other germs that resides on or in a wound. Experts believe it may be part of why some wounds--such as diabetic ulcers--are so difficult to heal. Cowan's group has studied biofilms in the lab, grown on pieces of pig skin, and she says the maggots are the only therapy that appears to completely eradicate them.

"A biofilm is a party of poly-microbial organisms," explains Cowan. "It could be bacteria, fungus, virus--all of them. They spit out a protective coating that protects them from things you would put on the wound, like an antiseptic gel. Also, it protects them from things you might take inside the body systemically, like antibiotics. So it's tough to get rid of these biofilms.

"You can debride with a scalpel, and you can cut away what looks like dead or unhealthy tissue, but you can't see biofilm. And if you don't completely get rid of a biofilm growth, within 24 to 72 hours it can completely regenerate, with its protective coating."

Cowan collaborated with Dr. Gregory Schultz on numerous studies involving biofilms at UF's Institute for Wound Research.

"Both independently and collaboratively, we tested quite a number of products," says Cowan. "We tried all kinds of expensive things. There were some that were more promising than others. We would get some good, favorable results. But there was nothing that was getting rid of everything--until we tested the maggots."

The group published a 2013 study in the journal Ulcers that included before-and-after pictures, taken with an electron scanning microscope, attesting to the maggots' handiwork.

"The results were mind-blowing," says Cowan. "The photos show the difference with the larvae at 24 and 48 hours. At 24 hours there were hardly any [bacteria] to count, and at 48 hours the biofilm was completely gone. Not one organism left."

She points out another benefit of the maggots, versus drug treatment: "It's hard for bacteria or other organisms to develop a resistance to something that's going to eat them." Drug-resistant bacteria are a huge problem in U.S. heath care.

Flores, the entomologist, wants to peek inside the maggots, to see what they've ingested. After they are removed from a wound, the bagged maggots are being frozen for later analysis. (Not in the same freezer where the lab crew keeps their Haagen-Dazs, by the way.)

"My background is studying insects--flies in particular," says Flores. "So I'm very interested in what's inside the larval gut, what they've been feeding on. Are they picking up the same organisms we're seeing growing on the wound? Does it match up?"

Flores and Cowan say theirs is the first study to do this type of analysis. And there should be plenty to look at: Between dead tissue, bacteria, and biofilm--an all-you-can-eat buffet for maggots--they take in enough grub to noticeably blow up in size.

"They do a great job," says Cowan. "They plump up to the size of a small jelly bean, whereas when they go in, they're smaller than a grain of rice. So it's pretty impressive."

The team is also looking at biomarkers of wound healing as another study outcome. Enzymes known as MMPs, for example, rise in response to inflammation. Levels drop as a wound heals.

Pending the study results, Cowan hopes to see maggot therapy catch on in the U.S. as an evidence-based way to treat wounds--not just diabetic ulcers, but other types as well. One example might be deep skin wounds in combat veterans. She's already gotten calls from plastic surgeons interested in the therapy.

"If the maggots can clean up a wound, they can possibly make advanced therapies more effective so you don't have to repeat them. For example, if you take a skin graft from the leg and put it on the belly, if that wound has a chronic biofilm, that graft is not going to take. But if you clean it up and then do the skin graft, it may take. What a win-win that would be."

[Source: EurekAlert, The Global Source for Science News, 17 August 2015
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/varc-mim081715.php]

"Comment:  I found this article to be very interesting. I have heard of this being done before and see it in a lot movies. This is some good information to retain, as I have a feeling we may be needing to use it in the future." 

Urban Man~

Are You Scared? I am!

This is an article by Bob Rinear and it hit a note with me as I can't help but have this feeling of dread. Other people that I talk to have it as well. Whether it's an investor thinking the stock market will collapse or it some parent who think there will be a great depression and he won't be able to feed his family, or it may be a parent who thinks there will be a total collapse and medicine for his diabetic son won't be available.

Whatever it is, I am heeding it as I have long ago learned to respect my gut instincts. It may be all that keeps you alive in the coming chaos.

Are you Scare? by Bob Rinear

When I talk to people that I consider to be “awake” they all tend to say the same things to me. Almost to a tee, they suggest that they feel something isn’t quite right, but they don’t know exactly what.

They feel like things are out of control, but can’t say why. They feel there’s some form of impending doom, but can’t explain what it is, or why they even feel that way. They just know things aren’t right,but for the life of them, they can’t elucidate just why they feel that way.

I understand that feeling and it is real. You know it in your mind, you almost feel it in your gut. It’s not just the rioting, it’s not just the crazy things like Jade Helm, it’s not just the soggy economy, it’s not just the loss of morals, it’s not just the mindless souls staring like zombies at their cell phones, it’s not just the insane Political Correctness, it’s not just the laws for the privileged versus the laws for the masses, it’s not just any one thing. It’s a combo platter of all of that and considerably more. In a word, many of you are “worried” and I think rightfully so. You just hide it well.

The old analogy is “whistling past the graveyard”. Popular in the 30’s, its definition is “To attempt to stay cheerful in a dire situation; to proceed with a task, ignoring an upcoming hazard, hoping for a good outcome.” I remember quite well using an example of whistling past the graveyard when I was a youngster. I was 12 years old and my neighbor Matt and I had walked to the movies to see a show. Slated to end at 9 pm, the theater was just half a mile from our house and back then kids could walk home safely in the dark.

After our movie was over, the theater announced that they were going to run a “sneak preview showing” of a brand new movie called “night of the living dead”. It was a Saturday evening and Matt and I phoned home quickly to see if we could stay and watch the “free” movie. We got the okay.

If you’re not familiar with the film, it’s about a group of folks that find refuge in a farm house after the population had been turned into flesh eating zombies. Well, it scared the Bejesus out of the both of us. On the way home, we had to take one short path through some woods, and we did our version of whistling past the graveyard by talking really loud to each other and making fun of the ghouls because they were so fake. Truth is we were scared witless and awful glad to get home.

I see a lot of whistling past the graveyard. You ask folks “hey, how are you doing” and they respond, “oh fine, thanks” but then later you find things aren’t so fine. They’re behind on their mortgage, the kids can’t find jobs, medical is eating them alive, etc etc. Every story is different, but similar. They aren’t fine in the classic sense that we all used to be. They’re whistling.

I wanted to write this to let you know, you’re not alone. If you have that feeling that things aren’t right, and you’re concerned about the future, you’re in fine company. You have every reason to feel that way because indeed there’s so many things going on that it becomes overwhelming. Let’s face it folks, the three biggest selling drugs in America are anti-depressants, anti-acids, and Erectile dysfunction medicine. That alone should give you a good insight into the stress of modern day living.

I think the key to remaining sane in this modern world is picking your battles. You can’t fight everything. If you’ve got one pet peeve chewing on you, then go after it with gusto. Maybe you can join forces with other folks bothered by the same topic, and get something done about it. But don’t try and take on all the ills, it will drive you crazy, exhaust you and make you miserable.

People often ask me why I don’t talk about such things as Ferguson or Baltimore. Why I usually don’t comment on the gay movement, or the lesser number of Christians in the past ten years. Well the fact is I have very strong opinions on such things, and many more to boot. When I see a child get expelled for chewing a pop tart into a “gun shape” don’t you think my head explodes? It most certainly does. I think the loss of common sense in America is one of the things that bothers me more than anything else. Where the hell did it go??? When I see the loss of Freedom’s we’ve experienced, it saddens me to the core.

But again, you can’t fight everything. We try our best to tell you what’s happening in global finance, who the elites are, what their angling towards and how best we can profit or protect ourselves from them. That battle alone is all consuming as far as time and energy goes. Why? Because what happens at the upper end of elitist banking will trickle down and affect virtually every aspect of your life.

From taxes, to interest rates, to employment opportunity, to wars, to politicians, to you name it. I have enough battle on my hands, that’s for sure.

I’d love to tell you it’s all going to get better, but alas, I cannot. Each day gets more bizarre than the next. The worst part is that from where I sit, most of it stems from the financial side of the story. The struggle going on globally to deal with a quadrillion in derivatives, and dozens of completely broke nations, tends to toss normality out the window in a big way. Governments can ram all sorts of things
down your throat when you’re more worried about your paycheck than keeping an eye on their criminal activity.

Just consider the abject insanity of this…on Wednesday we had the worst retail sales report since 2009. On Thursday the WSJ reported that we have just come through the worst month of economic reports since the great recession. So what did the market do Thursday? It ran to a new alltime high on the S&P. Are markets supposed to soar to new highs on economic reports this bad? No.

But in 2015 they do, because the market is broken. It’s all about Central planners, central bakers, Wall Street wizards. It’s all about selling debt to buy back stock, it’s about the Swiss National bank owning billions upon billions of US stocks.
You’re right to be confused, concerned and at times mad. The world has been turned upside down.

College costs more than my first house. Race relations are at an all time low. Despite the war on drugs and the war on poverty, we have more of both in huge supply. Civility is gone. Road rage is the norm. The police are being militarized, and scary joint exercises are being played out in 20 states.

The price of protein is out of sight, and chicken, and burger has hit yet another all time high. Seafood has become completely out of the question for tens of millions. I could go on for ages.

My point isn’t to be an “angry white guy” as I was called recently. Hell I keep collecting nicknames all the time. I’ve been Negative Nancy, an angry white guy, and that conspiracy nut Bob just in the past month. My point is simply to say to you all, it’s real. What you’re feeling is legit. Something is coming and only your imagination will limit what it could be. How do I know something’s coming?

Because we cannot keep spinning ever more out of control for ever. Something’s got to give.

I don’t know how we fix inner cities, I really don’t. I don’t know how we get politicians that don’t lie to us. I don’t know how to fix a justice system that has one set of laws for the Hollywood and rich, and another set for us peon’s. I don’t know how to get common sense back. I don’t know how to defeat political correctness. I simply have a feeling that it all has to play itself out, burn itself out.

And I think the spark that lights the fire is some form of economic reset. Something pretty big that shakes us to the core for a while and we collectively wake up and decide we’ve been going down the wrong path for too long and it’s time to rebuild. Empires that begin to lose control don’t tend to fix themselves and return to what made them great, they tend to be faced with something major that forces them to change. War, bankruptcy, revolt, etc. I think we’re on that path. And yes it hurts to say that.

So no, you’re not crazy and things are indeed strange and getting stranger. Everyone’s whistling past the graveyard. Something’s coming and it’s my job to try my best to figure out what it is, and how we can get around it. So far the only thing that makes the most sense to me is a global economic reset, and the disruptions something like that will bring. Maybe I’m wrong and imagining all this…but I don’t think so.

If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you know that the thrust of most of my articles is “what can we do about it?” It’s one thing to rant and rave about all the lunacy we see each day, but it’s something else to try and lay out real plans to deal with it. Well I tend to think that it always starts at “home”. All you can do is make your family the best it can be. That’s financially, educationally, defensively, etc. You’re not going to alter the tides of societal change. All you can do is alter
yourselves. Once your situation at home is as good as you can make it, can you then reach out and try and “fix” other things.

Let me leave you with this thought. The President is working on his pet trade agreement. So secretive is the content of that agreement, that word is if you’re in Congress and want to see it, you have to meet one on one in a basement office. You cannot take in a cell phone. You are given the pages one section at a time and must be returned after reading while you’re watched. You are then sworn to not discuss what you’ve seen. This is what passes today for our “Government for and by the people”. It’s nothing of the sort. This is Government for and of the elitist corporations and one world thinkers. You simply get in the way.

If your elected officials have to create pacts and agreements in total secrecy and then we have to “pass it to find out what’s in it” the idea of a free Republic is no more.

So you’re right to whistle past the grave yard. You’re right to have that ugly feeling in your gut.

You’re right to think that as much as you hope for the best you fear for the worst lately. In all the years I’ve been writing this, which actually started in 1994, some 21 years ago, I’ve never been as “worried” about our future as I am today. That says a lot because I’ve come through some big things in my life, from Vietnam to 9/11 to the 2008 crash.

95% of all my articles are designed to enlighten you to what we really see going on, and provide some path to profit from it, or protect yourself from it. It’s all I know how to do. Stay tuned.

Urban Man

The EMP Issue

It's no surprise to reader of UrbanSurvivalSkills.com that I am a big fan of the International Forecaster and especially Bob Rinear. This article reminds us of the potential Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) threat. This was brought home to me two days ago after a hellacious thunder storm left us without power and even the cellular system was messed up. An EMP event would make this basically permanent. So hopefully, part of your survival plan address a no warning and immediate grid outage. What are you doing to do?

The EMP Issue, by Bob Rinear, The International Forecaster, Wednesday 5 August 2015
http://the internationalforecaster.com

On Sunday I wrote a piece called “Fear Porn”, and it was the first of two articles I wanted to write for a long time, but “things” got in the way. The first article was about the concept of our entire lives now revolving around “the Internet”, and yet the net isn’t as stable as you might think. As I pointed out, your life would be massively disrupted if indeed a terrorist (foreign or domestic) did a massive hack which brought down the routers and pointers of the nets infrastructure.

Not because you couldn’t look at photo’s of your “BFF” showing you his or her breakfast, not  because you couldn’t tweet about some terribly unimportant topic…but because we are now at a point where no net…means no transactions. No credit cards, no ATM’s, no phones, no hotel reservations, no “a lot of things”. Given enough time, a nationwide Internet shut down, could very well cause social unrest, deaths, food supply problems, you name it. But the fact is, that’s just the warm up for the real issue. What if our power grid goes down?

I laid out the nightmares we saw during the NYC blackout of 1977 and the Ohio/Northeast blackout of 2004. Robberies, fires, arson, break in’s, looting, shootings, you name it. Ugly stuff, and that was just 1 and 2 day outages. What if something took the grid down for months?

Over the years I’ve looked at different situations wherein the “grid” as we call it (electrical generation and distribution) could be compromised on a wide scale. There’s several things that come to mind, such as network hacking. But the two that get the big attention are Solar burst of energy, and EMP’s. So what’s the real deal here? Can these things do what we’ve been told or not? Let’s look…

EMP stands for Electro-magnetic Pulse. An EMP is a short burst of electromagnetic energy.

Such a pulse may occur in the form of a radiated electric or magnetic field or conducted electric current depending on the source, and may be natural or man-made. Okay, so what’s the big deal?

Well, if the EMP is big enough, it will follow power lines, long cables, grounding straps, and burn up things with a power surge. Anything not “hardened’ against a massive short term burst, simply burns out. Be it computers, TV, phones, hospital equipment, power generators, high voltage lines, etc. Bad stuff.

We have been aware of the “natural” EMP’s that come from the Sun ( and even severe lightening storms) because the sun caused such a “burst” of electro-magnetism in 1859 that telegraph operators were singed around the country as sparks lit up their transmission lines.

Aurorae were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by theaurora's light. It was named the Carrington Event.

It was (and still is) the largest recorded geomagnetic storm. If something of that magnitude were to hit today, with the incredible amount of electronics we use each and every day, it would fry tens of millions of devices and plunge us into the dark for MONTHS. In fact, in Ontario Canada on March 13th 1989 a solar storm impacted their area. At 2 am on the 13th the Ontario grid went dark, plunging millions of folks into the dark. No power, no phones, no water pumping (electrical pumps) No Natural gas (electrical pumps) etc.

They found the fried equipment and things were up and running in about 12 hours. But think about that for a second. A solar “Coronal mass ejection” knocked out the power to millions. Yet it was “tiny” compared to the Carrinton event. So problem one with EMP’s is that they can indeed be natural, and another like the 1859 version would indeed take down huge parts of our entire countries power grid.

But we found out in 1962 just how dangerous Man made EMP’s could be. During that year, the US Government decided to test a high altitude nuclear blast. The test was named starfish and took place about a thousand miles from Hawaii on a deserted island. When the bomb went off some 250 miles up in the atmosphere, something quite strange happened. Electrical components on the Islands of Hawaii were blowing up. To quote one of the researchers….

The effects were bizarre and almost entirely unanticipated. One effect was an electromagnetic pulse, but nobody knew it was going to be anywhere nearly as large it proved to be. They had all this data and they didn’t understand very much of it, including the EMPs that had been observed and the effects produced…all kinds of electrical disturbances were seen over 1000 kilometers away in Oahu.

Since then we’ve learned that a large nuclear device that gets detonated in the upper atmosphere could easily wipe out the electrical grid, and darned near anything connected to it. Which instantly brought up the question of its use as a military weapon. In fact there’s no question at all as to whether the US and Russia have experimented with EMP as a weapon and we’re also worried about North Korea ( and some say Iran) Here’s why…

Let’s suppose some rogue nation takes an old scud missile and tips it with a nuclear bomb. They get the thing near our coast on a container ship or what have you and fire it. The next thing you know an entire area of the nation sees its grid go down, and the resulting surges and brownout’s spread through the network. It is not inconceivable that the whole country could go dark. Here is the statement from the 2008 committee on researching EMP attacks…

A single EMP attack may seriously degrade or shut down a large part of the electric power grid in the geographic area of EMP exposure effective instantaneously. There is also the possibility of functional collapse of grids beyond the exposed one, as electrical effects propagate from one region to another…Should significant parts of the electric power infrastructure be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities.

Now, depending on whom you wish to listen to, the effects of a well coordinated EMP attack on the US could last for 18 months of “dark” (no electricity) and MILLIONS dead. I could EASILY see that.

As you probably know, my biggest “big picture” scare is that we are 100% reliant on the electrical grid for EVERYTHING. We just expect it to be there because it’s “always there”. Yet what if it wasn’t? Then yes, there would be mass starvation, mass riots, bands of roaming hungry thieves. No question.

I try and keep the “wacko stuff” and the real Fear Porn out of the letters. I’m not a “shock jock” like Howard Stern who gets his listeners from being outrageous. But in this instance, I am not just trying to scare the hell out of you all, I’m trying to expose something that seems to be all-too real. Consider this…

As late as the 1940’s once you got out of town, just about every rural household had a couple chickens in the yard for fresh eggs. They usually had a hand driven well pump and a few minutes of pumping that handle would bring good clean water up from the depths. They probably had a nice veggie garden, and “mom” probably knew how to can their produce for use in the winter months.

Dad and the boys most definitely had a few small game rifles, and knew how to hunt rabbit, squirrel, and deer. They generally had a coal or wood furnace, and knew how to cook over wood instead of electricity or Natgas. Oil lamps and candles made at home were frequent. In a lot of homes in rural America 1940 if the power went down, no one noticed for half the day.

Today that very situation would be called a “prepper family”. You’d be looked upon as “one of them people”. But the fact is that for about 80% of our citizens, they have NONE of those skills or resources. A chicken coop in modern America? Horror the thought! People get run out of Home owner associations for parking a vehicle in their driveway let alone a chicken coop. A personal water well on your own property? Not today, it’s all about “city water”. Grabbing a .22 and shooting a squirrel for dinner? Perish the thought! The fact is that the typical American is absolutely and totally dependent on the “grid” for survival.

So if you ask me - Bob, what’s your two biggest fears right now? My answer would be a take down of the Electrical Grid first, and a take down of the Internet second. Now do we have any “proof” that either one is coming? Nope, not really. But sometimes you see things that make you think about it.

For example, the Military is moving a lot of its command nodes back into the depths of Cheyenne mountain, a fortified bunker complex deep beneath the granite rocks. Why? Could they be anticipating something like an EMP attack and want to make sure their command and control center is “hardened” against suck a thing? Could be.

I’d like to say I only have two fears about the big picture, but that wouldn’t be truthful. Others on my list are a global monetary reset which I totally believe is coming. A devaluation of our currency which I think is coming. I think were going to get rocked a bit over that when it happens, and frankly it has to happen. Even the wicked Central bankers know that our present system isn’t working.

So “yeah” there’s things that get my attention.

No one wants to live in fear, and I don’t either. But there’s some things that we have very little control over, that have a lot of control over our lives. Power, Internet and global finances come to mind. All 3 of them have the ability to rock our world.

Urban Man

How to Use Pool Shock to Purify Water

"I read a very interesting article from a site called Back Door Survival on a better way to purify water other than using bleach.- Urban Man"

If I were to ask how many of you store liquid bleach along with your other prepping supplies, I am certain that a good percentage of you would raise your hands.  Liquid bleach is a powerful disinfectant and sanitizer but did you know that there is something better?  Something with an almost indefinite shelf life that is inexpensive and takes almost no room to store?

That something is the chemical Calcium Hypochlorite most commonly known as Pool Shock.

I have known about Pool Shock for years but because it is not readily available in my area, I never took the time to search it out so I could stockpile some for my own emergency preps.  That has now changed and today I plan to show you how to use Pool Shock the easy way, step by step.

Why Not Bleach?

Before we start, you may be asking “why not use liquid bleach?”.  There are a few problems with liquid bleach.  It takes a lot of room to store bleach plus the usable shelf life is only six month to a year depending on storage conditions.

The folks at Clorox say this:

The active ingredient in liquid bleach, sodium hypochlorite, is very sensitive to high heat and freezing, but under normal home storage conditions, it should still perform well for nine to twelve months.

In addition to a limited shelf life, there is another problem. I have had reports from Backdoor Survival readers telling me that in their area, they can only purchase “Clorox Ultra” which is concentrated.  When I called Clorox to ask how to use concentrated bleach to purify water, they said that it was not intended to be used in that manner and why would I want to do that anyway.  Seriously, their representative actually said that.

Pool Shock – The Boilerplate

When I started doing research for this article, I visited some of the most respected survival and preparedness blogs and forums for background material.  After all, pool shock is pool shock and there must be some standards for use, right?

With just one exception, all of the sites I visited included this boilerplate from the EPA:

You can use granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water.

Add and dissolve one heaping teaspoon of high-test granular calcium hypochlorite (approximately ¼ ounce) for each two gallons of water, or 5 milliliters (approximately 7 grams) per 7.5 liters of water.

The mixture will produce a stock chlorine solution of approximately 500 milligrams per liter, since the calcium hypochlorite has available chlorine equal to 70 percent of its weight.

To disinfect water, add the chlorine solution in the ratio of one part of chlorine solution to each 100 parts of water to be treated. This is roughly equal to adding 1 pint (16 ounces) of stock chlorine to each 12.5 gallons of water or (approximately ½ liter to 50 liters of water) to be disinfected.

To remove any objectionable chlorine odor, aerate the disinfected water by pouring it back and forth from one clean container to another.

Have your eyes glazed over yet?  Mine have. Being an accountant, I like to deal in absolutes so what is this business about “one heaping teaspoon”?  Plus, what’s up with the references to “approximately” and “roughly”?

I decided that it was  time to do my own testing, and sure enough, each time I measured out a heaping teaspoon, I had different results; they ran the gamut from 1 1/4 teaspoons to 2 teaspoons.  This made my head hurt.

Another thing.  Over and over I read that you should use pool shock that is a minimum of 78% calcium hypochlorite with the balance being inert ingredients.  Fair enough, but there are two problems with this. First, what you find locally may be 68%, it may be 78%, or it may be something else.  I sourced mine from Amazon and it was 73% calcium hypochlorite.  Second, the EPA, makes no such recommendation or at least none that I could find. They simply say “high-test”.

Did I mention this made my head hurt?

But there is more.  I actually found a couple of sites that said to use one heaping tablespoon of Pool Shock for each two gallons of water!  You know, just because you find something on the internet does not mean it is true.

My conclusion?  The exact amount and the exact percentage does not matter as long as it is within a reasonable range and close to the EPA standard.  I do think it is important that the pool shock does not contain other additives that may or may not be safe even when highly diluted.  Other than that, however, it is my belief that the precise percentage of Calcium Hypochlorite to inert ingredients does not matter as long as it is 68% or higher.

For my own use, I settled on 1 teaspoon of pool shock per gallon of water when making up my stock chlorine solution.  Then, to disinfect water, I used 3/4 ounce of my pool shock solution to treat a gallon of water.  This makes it easy to calculate how much to use, regardless of the size of your container.

Step-by-Step:  How to Purify Water Using Pool Shock

The first thing I did was gather my supplies.  Notice that I used eye protection goggles and rubber gloves.  Other supplies included an empty bleach bottle, funnel, shot glass, and measuring spoons.

I verified the size of my stock chlorine solution container, namely a repurposed bleach bottle.  My bottle held 1.42 gallons and I wrote this on the outside with a Sharpie pen.  My intent, however, was to only prepare 1 gallon of stock solution to keep the math simple.

After donning my protection gear, I added water to my stock solution bottle, carefully measuring the quantity.  I used exactly one gallon of water.

I then measured out some pool shock; one level teaspoon to be exact.  I put the cap back on the bottle and swished it around a bit. I gave it a sniff test and it definitely smelled bleach-like.

The next step was to purify water.  I wanted to make drinking water and for me, the smaller the jug the better.  I chose a 64 ounce repurposed apple juice jug.  Remember the easy math?  The EPA says 1 part chlorine solution to 100 parts water so the math is 64/100 = .64 ounces.

Keeping things easy, that translates into approximately 2/3rd ounce.  Remember, the EPA guideline uses the word “approximately” all over the place.  That was good enough for me.  To easily measure the proper dilution, I used a mini shot glass that had measurement markings along the side.

Be sure to pour your pool shock into your water and not the other way around.  The last thing you want is to splash the solution on yourself on the surrounding surfaces (although you have probably noticed that I did this outdoors).

After preparing my newly purified water, I drank up.  Three things.  I did not throw up, I did not get diarrhea and I did not get sick or die.

I am comfortable with the results even though the solution I made may have been slightly stronger than the EPA guidelines.  Then again, given the vagueness of the EPA guidelines, perhaps my measurements were spot on.

Note:  I did not find that my water had an objectionable smell or taste.  True, it was not sweet tasting like the water coming out of my Royal Berkey but it was palatable.  If your own purified water has an unpleasant odor, simply aerate it by pouring it back and forth between clean containers.  This trick applies to any water, not just water treated with pool shock.

Label your pool shock solution.  This is powerful stuff.  Get out your Sharpie and label the jug with as much information as you can.  Store it in the same manner you store liquid bleach, up high and away from pets and children and in a location that is cool, dark and dry.

Also store your unused pool shock safely.  Because it is corrosive, I chose a mason jar with a plastic lid.  Plus, rather than empty the pool shock into the jar, I sealed the plastic bag it came in with a clip and stuffed the bag inside of the jar.

Other Handling and Storage Considerations

I contacted the manufacturer of the pool shock I purchased and requested a Material Safety Data Sheet on the product.  They promptly responded and here is what it said about handling and storage:

Keep product tightly sealed in original containers. Store product in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area. Store away from combustible or flammable products. Keep product packaging clean and free of all contamination, including, e.g. other pool treatment products, acids, organic materials, nitrogen-containing compounds, dry powder fire extinguishers (containing mono-ammonium phosphate), oxidizers, all corrosive liquids, flammable or combustible materials, etc.

Do not store product where the average daily temperature exceeds 95° F. Storage above this temperature may result in rapid decomposition, evolution of chlorine gas and heat sufficient to ignite combustible products.

Now that I have been through the process and understand the math, I am confortable using pool shock to purify water for drinking, hygiene, and sanitation purposes.  It is not, however, an excuse for not storing water nor an excuse for not having a supply of traditional water purification liquids or tabs that are pre-measured and simple to carry with you in bug-out-bags and emergency kits.

As far as I am concerned, the pool shock I have purchased is reserved for dire emergency use, period.  Yes, I feel it is safe, but it is still a powerful chemical solution as is liquid bleach.  I will use it as the water purification method of last resort and if the time comes, I will be thankful I have it on hand.

Disclaimer

I have to say this: I am not a chemist and I am not an expert.  My methods are my own and they work for me.  That being said, if you have any hesitation at all, visit other resources including the EPA and make the decision to use pool shock your own and not just something someone told you to do.  Here is a link:  Emergency Disinfection of Drinking Water.

The Final Word

Everywhere you look you will see a recommendation to  store bleach for water purification. I have made that recommendation and so have many, if not most, of my blogging peers.  What you may not have seen is that liquid bleach has a limited shelf life of 6 to 12 months.  I fear that this could be leaving a lot of people ill prepared to produce safe, potable water in an emergency.

This means that a person that began prepping a year ago, and does not know to rotate their bleach, is already living with false security when it comes to water purification.  And what about people that have been prepping longer?

As long as pool shock is stored properly, it will have an almost indefinite shelf life plus, a small one pound package will treat many thousands of gallons of water. Ten thousand to be exact.  It can be mixed and used as potable water and as a disinfectant, just like bottled liquid bleach.

At the end of the day, do your own research and decide for yourself.  All I can say is that for me, the $13 investment was more than worth it for peace of mind down the road.


Urban Man