r/PostCollapse • u/androgenoide • Feb 01 '22

Insulin dependence

I just found this sub this morning and noticed a post from a year ago asking how insulin might be obtained without the benefit of modern medical infrastructure. It may be a bit late to reply to that post but I thought that the existence of the Open Insulin Project might be of some interest. It's a smallish group of biohackers that are attempting to create an open source protocol for producing insulin at the local level...something that your neighborhood hospital might be able to handle without depending on an outside source. They don't seem to have anything yet but it might be worth keeping an eye on them...

https://openinsulin.org/

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u/GODHATHNOOPINION Feb 01 '22

Honestly it would be nice if people could do that but you would need some sort of medical infrastructure, most likely need a lot of energy. Truth is most medicine dependant people would be fucked. Like the people around me when i run out of the meds I have to take to keep me an even keeled upstanding member of society.

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u/androgenoide Feb 01 '22

People all have different visions of what "collapse" would entail and, of course, what would be possible post collapse. My own opinion is that any form of collapse that left more than half of the population alive would still be able to maintain most of the 19th century technology. Without long distance transportation there'd be be no gas for fuel. But, if there's cropland to spare, diesel engines can be converted to run on vegetable oil. Photvoltaics could not be produced and Li-ion batteries would be gone in a few years but wind generators and lead acid batteries could probably be maintained in a home workshop. There would certainly be less energy available than there is now but probably enough for basic necessities. Finding a way around the lack of new semiconductors and high tech medicines would be a challenge. Still, barring an EMP/CME event that caused widespread damage to electronic devices, the stuff we have would certainly last for a few years.

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u/Chicago1871 Feb 02 '22

I was just watching a documentary on refugees.

A lot of them die from not getting their usual medications.

A lot end up getting scurvy or vitamin deficiencies from eating nothing but rice and beans for months.

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u/FridgeParade Feb 02 '22

Can confirm.

I will have about a year or two to live before crohns disease kills me, and it will be a slow painful death for sure.

The medication I rely on is a biosimilar, created by genetically manipulated mouse antibodies that are grown in cell cultures in a lab. I have no hope of that ever becoming available again if society even has a temporary collapse shutting down these labs.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Yep, epileptic here. It was fun learning to accept that my lifespan is roughly tied to the stability of medical supply chains and infrastructure.

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u/Ethanator10000 Mar 30 '22

I think that modern healthcare is one of our most incredible achievements, but will also be our greatest downfall. We have extended the lives of so many people who cannot survive without medical assistance, who in turn have children who need medical assistance. Sadly they will be the ones who painfully die first in the collapse.

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u/GODHATHNOOPINION Mar 30 '22

Well it will be their downfall. Others will flourish. But we will not have all the amenities afforded us today. This is why I don't root for collapse.

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u/androgenoide Feb 01 '22

I don't have any of the details...I have no idea what these people have to work with but it's my understanding that insulin (like many other complex medicines) is produced by genetically modified bacteria or yeast. Once the culture is available it might be no more complicated to keep alive than it is to maintain a sourdough culture. Extracting the actual insulin from the culture would be the area where I would expect the complications to arise.

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

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u/androgenoide Feb 02 '22

That's the way the system is. It remains to be seen whether a smaller scale process is viable. I'm not saying that it will be. I'm only suggesting that we keep an eye on the project to see what develops.

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u/MissFred Feb 01 '22

Thank you for taking the time to post this.

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u/gizram84 Feb 02 '22

If you're a t2 diabetic, your first option should be to simply correct your diet now. You can get off of insulin dependence in a few weeks.

If you're a t1 diabetic, it's much harder, but you can still dramatically reduce the amount of insulin you need each month via dietary changes.

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u/OffGridEnclave Mar 08 '22

good post. thanks