Duration Health — Emergency Medicine Made Easy

Before we drop our four-part series on when the shit hits the fan, we wanted to cover some of the gear that's going to show up in it — starting with this kit from Duration Health. Full transparency: they sent it out to us, so this is less a review and more an overview of what they provide. In short, Duration Health provides life-saving medications in a small format for people who are remote, don't have easy access to doctors or ERs, or are prepping for disasters.

Here's what makes it legit: even though they sent me the kit, I still had to do a consult with one of their doctors. We went through my medical history, what's in the kit, and any questions I had. And for a year after you get your kit, you have email access to those doctors — if you're unsure how something works or what it's for, you ask an actual physician. It also ships with a field guide that's close to 200 pages, covering every scenario you can think of: ear treatments, dental, headaches and dizziness, infection, motion sickness, all kinds of pain. The back of it walks through every single medicine in the kit.

We looked at their Lifesaver Kit, which runs right around $1,500 to $1,700 depending on specials. The packaging is genuinely smart — a small travel case plus two large cases, everything neatly organized in labeled pouches. The little travel case holds stomach and cough basics: bismuth for upset stomach, an anti-diarrheal, itch relief, cough suppressant, and guaifenesin — the generic Mucinex. If you're leaving home, you can pull meds from the big cases into the small one and go.

The big cases are where it gets serious. One holds things like metronidazole, simethicone, an antifungal cream, and ondansetron — generic Zofran. The other side carries potassium pills, ibuprofen, an antihistamine for allergy relief, Narcan — which is really cool to see included — and epinephrine injectors. EpiPens, in a preparedness kit. The final bag is the antibiotic and antiviral arsenal: amoxicillin, azithromycin, doxycycline, valacyclovir, Tamiflu generic, and topical ointments including generic triamcinolone. I'll be honest with you like I was on camera — I butcher these medicine names, and that's exactly why the field guide matters. I'm the perfect candidate for it.

They make more than this one kit, too: a pared-down adult kit around $299, a pediatric version around $200-$220, and a family edition of the Lifesaver Kit at about $2,500 with multiples of all these medications. They've even got specialty kits for asthma or for travel to Africa and Latin America. Every medicine comes with its individual pharmacy pamphlet, all certified and done through doctors.

You can't undervalue having this on hand. If the power goes out, if there's a natural disaster, or if you live far from a hospital, this stuff could save your life. Most people's medical kits stop at trauma — an IFAK, some tourniquets, maybe CPR gear. Rarely do you ever see somebody with a built-out medication kit like this, and that's why it's earning a permanent spot in our big medical bag for the SHTF series.