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Desperation is the Mother of Invention. What's your desperate invention?

Last Tuesday on the summit of Mission Peak, I hurriedly poured Emergen-C electrolyte replacement power into my palm. Repeated licked it off followed by sips of water.

Why? Severe leg cramps from intense exercise. My water reservoir has a bite-valve. No cup. In desperation, I invented lick-and-sip. Thank goodness Emergenc-C relieves my cramps!
Sweet relief.

For the past three years, I have been getting painful muscle cramps from running and hiking. I drink water all day long. Started adding salt to my diet and taking magnesium and calcium twice a day. I stretch several times a day.

My doctor told me to take Emergen-C each morning. Muscle cramps increase with age.

LiterateHiker 9 July 17
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10 comments

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1

Hope you’re better overall soon

4

One of my many was when, on a dirt road through the African bush and 50 miles from any settlement, the big end bearings on my car engine packed up.
I jacked up the front of the car to get room to wriggle underneath, below the engine, then undid the sump bolts and carefully removed it, together with its precious load of very hot oil. I then undid the big ends of each piston in turn to remove the shell bearings. I then took the suede boots I was wearing and, using the blade from my razor, I cut strips of suede leather, the same width as the bearing shells and just the right length to wrap around the crankshaft. I dipped the 4 strips into the oil in the removed sump, leaving them to soak whilst I had a smoke break. I then wrapped each strip round the crankshaft, replaced the pistons' bearing clamps, tightened them thourougly, and finally put back the sump. 2 hours work.
When I got to the settlement there was no garage, but by now I was pretty confident so I drove on to a town, a further 50 miles away. No spares, so I topped up the oil in the sump and continued to my destination, a large town 200 miles from where I had broken down. The local agent had no bearing shells in stock, but told me they could have some there in 5 day's time. Since I was enjoying only a long weekend's holiday, I said no and after my holiday drove the 350 miles back home. When my local garage finally opened the engine up to fit new bearing shells, the crankshaft was undamaged, and indeed highly polished - to everyone's amazement.
I had driven 600 miles on my shoes.
Where did I get the idea? I was a keen fan of cars, and had once read that the model T Ford had leather big-end bearings. They work!!

Petter Level 9 July 18, 2020

@Petter

Wow! Congratulations! Well done.

@LiterateHiker Thank you. Maybe one day I'll tell you how I nailed a wheel back onto a car and drove it 200 miles to civilisation, or how I "bush repaired" a broken coil spring with a rock!
Living in the African bush one certainly learned how to 'invent" solutions!
I imagine people in "remote America" must also have been ingenious in their solutions.

2

I developed an AI to analyse micro welds that saved 18 lives a day and got me a promotion. (and people say AI are evil) I also made a LEGO in Billund at their factory on one of their machines to make LEGO's.

3

The mother of invention is necessity, not desperation. Desperation is the mother of MacGyver.

@p-nullifidian

I was joking. However:

At age 12, I saved my brother, 9, when he fell through the ice while ice skating. Kids on the beach were useless and screaming. I swung into action and saved his life, making it up as I went along.

In that case, desperation was the mother of invention.

3

Well, I'd say that my 2 best 'desparate 'inventions' would be my home-made, sit down to use post-hole borer, created from a piece of pipe about 90cms in diameter and about a half a metre long with teeth cut into it at one end and a bar welded across the top with a a big nut and bolt through the bar and welded solidly into place so to attach a racket wrench to turn the whole contraption.
My other 'sit on a crate to use' device is a tool for digging narrow, not too deep trenches, made by cutting and old square-mouthed shovel along the sides, trimming the handle down to a suitable length and adding a handle cover made from a bicycle tube.
My Dad always taught that, " If there is something you need and you can't afford to buy it, hire it or even borrow it, look around what at you have available, sit down, think it through and then make it yourself.

1

"I can't stand to wait in line long
So I built a new machine
It just measures up the distance
And eliminates the folks between"

That's a baller invention.

1

Salt is definitely your friend. Not table salt. It can backfire, but good mineral salt. Proper mix is about 1/2 -1 teaspoon per quart of water. Yes you read that correctly. I grew up spending a LOT of time in the desert. I remember when that doc with no nutritional training came out with the book on the evils of salt. Shortly after, we would wat h tourists guzzling gallons of bottled water and eating fruit , avoiding all salt...and we would wonder when the rescue crews were going to be dispatched for them. Even had a nickname for them....Buzzard bait excess water , especially with potassium is a good way to pee yourself to death in the wild. Pickle juice does wonders for leg cramps. 😊

Anywhere you sweat profusely needs replacement water - and replacement salts, mainly sodium chloride. That's why the army issues salt tablets. However, there are some ultra low humidity climates where your body's cooling is performed, unnoticed by you, via evaporation of liquid from your lungs. If you deliberately take replacement salt in these climates, your body builds up excessive levels of salt. Roughly translated, that means Florida people need more salt than California people, but it's dependent on humidity.

1

Hmmmn. I hear ads on radio for that product all the time. Maybe I should try some.

1

Potassium is good also!

@TeresaWyckoff

Emergen-C has:

Vitamin C 1,000 mg
Pantothenic Acid (as calcium pantothenate) (Vit. B5), 50 mg.
Calcium 50 mg
Phosphorus 38 mg
Magnesium 53 mg
Zinc 2 mg
Manganese 9.5 mg
Chromium 10 mcg
Sodium 65 mg
Potassium 200 mg

1

Magnesium gets rid of my leg cramps and restless leg syndrome. When restless leg was bad, I used legitrin or tonic water since Quinine is in that and it works.

My desperation invention, however, would be using four sawhorses, two C clamps, and a straight edge clamped to sheets of plywood instead of a table saw.

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