DIY FIRST AID SET for out of the country travel!

TRAVELER'S FIRST AID KIT 

- Party of 15 - to Nicaragua - March, 2013 -

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*fine print* - This is not a first aid training, or an herbal training. This is simply to show what is packed in the kit. You take all responsibility for the contents and use of this information.

**This especially does not cover severe emergency protocols, ie; broken bones, eye injuries, CPR, anaphylaxis, seizures, concussion, or any other medical emergency that should be tended by a medic. Always know your emergency contacts!

Resources for first aid training can be found at the very end of the article.

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Oh Great Spirit,

I am the woman walking in the fields

collecting plants to heal the people.

I give thanks to this plant

and I have faith with all my heart

That this plant will heal the sickness of the people.

~ Gathering prayer of Belize ~

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We started with a workshop

Where we discussed the possible hazards, and basic first aid protocols.

Together, we made a super-sticky spruce resin salve, and a tincture they named 'after-bug care' which contained 3 kinds of Artemesia and a little Rue. Sweet Annie (Artemisia annua) is specific for malaria, so we made this the primary ingredient, backed up by Mugwort (A. vulgaris) and Wormwood

 (A. absinthium). Rue (Ruta graveolens) is a well loved anti-venom and anti-parasitic, so we added a bit of that too.

We discussed Chewing Herbs, and their effectiveness, ease and versatility for travel.

I packed them up together, one pouch for each traveler. Clove, Licorice, & Osha.

After our super-fun workshop where we donned bandanna fashions and fumbled with rubber glove removal,  as well as tasted various elixirs both candylike and heinous, I got busy assembling the full kit.

The goals of the kit were several: 

• 1) Lightweight enough to carry - so I used primarily plastic 1/2 oz tincture bottles.
• 2) Address all of the circumstances the group brought up in class, and traditional ones necessary.
• 3) Be well organized, accessible, and efficient to use.
• 4) Be incredibly versatile, so each herbal packed can serve at least a few purposes.
• 5) Be theft-resistant - proper sizes so no trouble at the airport, and of the major sets, there are 2, packed with different travelers - so if one suitcase is lost or stolen, there will be another kit sufficient.
• 6) Be non-breakable and non-meltable, it's hot there. 

The team (13 teens and two adults) from North Star have been working together for months - practicing Spanish, learning stove building techniques, understanding travel responsibilities and logistics, fundraising, learning how to obtain a passport, insurance, and proper items to pack. 

They've also done team building initiatives with seasoned Outward Bound Mentor, Pandora. Who was seriously spectacular and fierce.

They've spent time also learning about the landscape, the climate of Nicaragua, and some of the Native culture and daily life of the people. They've each done a research project on something specific. My daughter studied the bugs, which are not only fascinating, but also a wee bit scary!

So ... for the final outcome, here is the full contents of the kit. If you are traveling with a group, you can use the following documents to help you assemble your own, or reduce/adjust to your own needs for the size or location of your adventure.

These INFO CARDS, to go into the 3 main baggies. I laminated them for waterproofing, and then paired them together into what seemed logical herbal/sanitary overlap. Click to download & print:

(*note: cards not organized how the bags are - I made them first :)

VECTORS/VENOMS, WOUNDS

BURNS, SOFT TISSUE INJURY

FEAR/ANXIETY/INSOMNIA, FOOD POISONING

Then I took stock of all the contents, and packed them up into their thematic baggies.

MASTER INGREDIENT LIST

MASTER LIST OF WHAT IS IN EACH BAG

And a little Jitterbug Perfume Oil - aka bugs don't like this smell and it's good for those of you who like patchouli and get a headache from too much rose-geranium. Alas, you still must bring and use deet, so I hear.

Bug Essential Oil Blend: 

Cedarwood 3 parts, Patchouli 1 part, and a touch of vetiver and mugwort, with a little jojoba oil. I did put these in little 1/4 oz glass roll on bottles, as essential oils really need to be in glass.

Here are the ingredients for a few of the other combinations found in the kit: 

Burn Dressing

to a 2 1/2 oz bottle, color coded cap blue:

Aloe Vera Gel, Rose Hydrosol, Witch Hazel Hydrosol, equal parts.

St Johnswort tincture, about a tablespoon

Lavender essential oil 6 drops

Blue Chamomile essential oil 6 drops

Helichrysm essential oil 6 drops

Wound Wash

to a 2 1/2 oz bottle, color coded cap green:

Yarrow tincture, 2 parts

St. Johnswort tincture 1 part, 

Witch Hazel hydrosol 1 part

essential oils of Lavender & Blue Chamomile (7 drops ea)

Alien Elixir: (aka random fears)

Equal Parts Skullcap and Passionflower tincture

Panacea III - Traveller's Insurance essential oil blend 

10 ml glass eo bottle

(this blend is a proprietary recipe, but I will offer the ingredients and you can either create your own version or commission an essential oil practitioner to. Summer and fall I usually have it for sale.)

contains:  Pure Essential Oils of Eucalyptus, Lavender, Roman Chamomile,

Peppermint, Blue Chamomile, White Sage.  

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So, here they go! Geared up, and ready for a transformational adventure. 

It's been a great honor and joy for me to do this project, both as an herbalist, and a mom. In addition it has fulfilled my goal in giving something this year - the first time I've made a philanthropic goal, and what better way to start that tradition in my work. I look forward to most of the medicines being unneeded, but also look forward to hearing what was successfully utilized.

Now, I ship my open heart off to Central America, and hope it returns to me still beating strong, maybe even stronger.

Thank you to North Star for being a truly remarkable place for teens to flourish, and to all of our friends and family that supported my daughter in making this dream come true - from donations, to gifts of colorful bandannas, and help with everything inbetween.

It takes a village.

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(now if you need some comic releif after the sap I just poured on you, here is North Star's rendition of the Harlem Shake!)

FIRST AID RESOURCES:

SOLO Wilderness First Aid Certification (manual seen in second photo)

HERBAL 1st AID training with Sevensong

HERBFirstAID online course, add your name for future enrollment

( I receive no compensation for these endorsements - they are my personal recommendation)

travel smart, travel safe!

xoxo

Ananda

HIGH DENSITY SOUND WAVES MAY AID REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a way to use sound to create cellular scaffolding for tissue engineering, a unique approach that could help overcome one of regenerative medicine's significant obstacles. The researchers will present their technique at the 168th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held October 27-31, 2014, at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown Hotel.

The development of the new technique started with somewhat of a serendipitous discovery. The University of Washington team had been studying boiling histotripsy -- a technique that uses millisecond-long bursts of high-intensity ultrasound waves to break apart tissue -- as a method to eliminate cancerous tumors by liquefying them with ultrasound waves. After the sound waves destroy the tumors, the body should eliminate them as cellular waste. When the researchers examined these 'decellularized' tissues, however, they were surprised by what the boiling left intact.

"In some of our experiments, we discovered that some of the stromal tissue and vasculature was being left behind," said Yak-Nam Wang, a senior engineer at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. "So we had the idea about using this to decellularize tissues for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine."

The structure that remains after decellularizing tissues is known as the extracellular matrix, a fibrous network that provides a scaffold for cells to grow upon. Most other methods for decellularizing tissues and organs involve chemical and enzymatic treatments that can cause damage to the tissues and fibers and takes multiple days. Histrostipsy, on the other hand, offers the possibility of fast decellularization of tissue with minimal damage to the matrix.

"In tissue engineering, one of the holy grails is to develop biomimetic structures so that you can replace tissues with native tissue," Wang said. Stripping away cells from already developed tissue could provide a good candidate for these structures, since the extracellular matrix already acts as the cellular framework for tissue systems, Wang said.

Due to its bare composition, the matrix also induces only a relatively weak immune response from the host. The matrix could then theoretically be fed with stem cells or cells from the same person to effectively re-grow an organ.

"The other thought is that maybe you could just implant the extracellular matrix and then the body itself would self-seed the tissues, if it's just a small patch of tissue that you're replacing," Wang said. "You won't have any immune issues, and because you have this biomimetic scaffold that's closer to the native tissue, healing would be better, and the body would recognize it as normal tissue."

Wang is currently investigating decellularization of kidney and liver tissue from large animals. Future work involves increasing the size of the decellularized tissues and assessing their in-vivo regenerative efficacy.