A word of caution: NTM infections

Wow-loving where this thread has gone. Shows what a cool community this can be with knowledgeable folks from all walks of life.

I'll be lovin' when you're all well and we're slaying certain species!  Thanks for sharing and hope things go swimmingly...

No, and don’t inject it…

Hard to believe somebody would even suggest something so ridiculous

It kind of depends ... it could be a good thing. That stuff is injected as a wash, with an exit hole downstream, to kill necrotizing fasciitis (bacteria that eats people aka fleshing eating bacteria) in muscle tissue. Neither the innate immune system nor antibiotics work on dead flesh. The necrotizing fasciitis kills the flesh as it goes so the only way to stop it is cut it out, radiation, or a baptism in bleach.  Nice thing about chlorine is it dissolves dead flesh, as opposed to iodine (my personal choice - Betadine) that can actually kill flesh, along with whatever else you were trying to kill. But, in general, nope you don't want to be injecting bleach if you don't have to. And if you do have to maybe get a doctor to help you.

Wow-loving where this thread has gone. Shows what a cool community this can be with knowledgeable folks from all walks of life.

I'll be lovin' when you're all well and we're slaying certain species!  Thanks for sharing and hope things go swimmingly...

That's what I'm sayin!!  Slay time is getting very near!!   

Maybe there’s a chemist out there

  

Bleach (sodium hypochlorite) does degrade, as mentioned - generally disproportionates to sodium chloride (table salt) and oxygen gas.  Furthermore, degradation can be catalyzed by metal contamination (ex: iron), heat, and light, which could follow a different degradation pathway to chlorine gas, chlorates, and other downstream redox products.  That said, if protected from these elements, stability should be pretty decent.  The degradation should also be pretty concentration independent, meaning the rate of degradation should not be too affected by concentration in water.  The balanced chemical equation for bleach degradation shows two molecules of bleach being required to degrade to two molecules of NaCl and one molecule of O2.  Generally, the rate of degradation increases with concentration due to the kinetics depending on two species interacting with each other in solution (bimolecular).  So, the more dilute, the slower the degradation.  With the expiry at 8/22, and if the bottle was amber, protected from light, and was protected from excess heat for a long period of time, I would say it is likely still good.  Now there are ways to titrate bleach to find out, but that is a bit extra, and you could just go buy more, since it is dirt cheap.

Whew Nolanduke, I’ll take your word for it. Apparently you be a chemist

We used up the original bottle a long time ago and I’m refilling it from a gallon I mixed up the remainder of which I’ll now dump re it’s in a clear plastic pitcher. If light exposure is a factor would explain why the original bottle is dark brown opaque

A small bottle of Di Dak Sol is $15-20 depending where you buy it, so not cheap, and I’m perfectly confident the recipe given us by a derm professor at Stanford will work just as well

One thing she emphasized is it has to be the old fashioned simple version of household bleach

In future I’ll mix up smaller batches and store in opaque containers. We keep some first aid stuff in the surfmobile including resuscitation bag and bandages etc re the injuries do happen both big and small

How much you use depends on how you need to apply it. It’s either soaking paper towels to apply it or just pouring it over a wound Thinking about that I’ll probably keep a half gallon jug in case a wound needs to be flushed

Thanks for the clarifications, we will adjust accordingly

Whew Nolanduke,

Yeah sorry, I was at work and in the zone... very rapid comment turned in to a lot.  Chemistry gets me jazzed, so does fishing and building furniture.  I'm weird - I get it.  lol   

Wish I had some aptitude for chemistry, biochemistry in particular re the technology hasn’t caught up to the potential in medicine. Just when that’s getting exciting I’m about to pull the plug

I waited way too long to get into woodworking. Both grandfathers, an uncle and a cousin all craftsmen at the top of the game, and I learned nothing from any of them

My cousin still doing some furniture but he’s up in Washington

Wow that is terrible. Hope you get well soon.

I waited way too long to get into woodworking. Both grandfathers, an uncle and a cousin all craftsmen at the top of the game, and I learned nothing from any of them

I understand this to some degree.  I grew up around woodworkers as well.  My dad, grandfather, uncles, etc.  I got personally into it at about ten years ago.  Luckily, my grandfather is still around today at 90 yrs old, so I was able to learn a lot from him, not by observation much, but by listening to his tips and tricks towards certain things.  He was in to micro-projects - wooden clocks, laminate wood art pieces, and such.  My dad is a cabinet maker, which doesn't interest me too much, however is a nice skill to have learned.  My interests took me on a different path - hardwood fine furniture, which is a lot like synthetic organic chemistry.  Projects are long term, and often feature a very low, unforgivable margin for error the deeper they get.  One mistake deep in can derail the entire thing.  I like that pressure.  It allows me to think, prepare, think some more, practice, think again, then execute once for the glory.     

Sorry to thread jack...   

My wife thinks all my projects are long term

For me it’s a long thoughtful and calming process, until I get to the part where the f bombs start flying

Damn!! that sounds nasty. I had a friend get splined deep while we were out spearfishing. Apparently it hurt really bad because by the time we got on the road he was begging me to cut his hand off. By the time we got to Jenner, I was ready to cut his head off. Good luck to you bro.Thanks for sharing.