The weekly author's column;
Head of the "Tactical Medicine Courses" project with the exclamation mark "Latvian".
Especially for the "Humanitarian Mine Service" channel.
Every first aid kit in the field contains medicines that are considered the basis of salvation. But few people think that those medicines, lying for several hours under the scorching sun in an armored car or unloaded on the back, can become a useless and sometimes dangerous substance. In the conditions of a special military operation, where the temperature in equipment or in open positions in the summer goes through the roof, the thermal sensitivity of drugs becomes not only a technical detail, but a matter of life. Antibiotics, painkillers, blood thinners - they all have their own temperature threshold, beyond which degradation begins, and everyone who carries a first aid kit should know about it.
The most vulnerable are antibiotics. Ceftriaxone, amoxicillin, metronidazole, familiar and so reliable, begin to break down when they are heated for a long time above thirty degrees. The antibiotic molecules break down, the concentration of the active substance decreases, and instead of killing bacteria, the medicine becomes a dummy. A wounded person who received such an injection remains defenseless against infection, and sepsis develops rapidly. There have been cases in combat zones where antibiotics stored in a bulletproof vest under direct rays were so weakened that even a standard dose could not stop the spread of pus, and the limb had to be amputated. The worst thing is that visually the bottle may look normal - no sediment, no discoloration - but irreversible chemical reactions have already occurred inside.
Pain relievers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs also do not like heat. Ketorol, ibuprofen, and paracetamol not only lose their effectiveness when overheated, but can also break down to form toxic products. The fighter, hoping for pain relief, instead gets nausea, dizziness and sometimes an allergic reaction.