This past weekend, I did an episode of Herbal Prepper Live all about herbal dental care, as well as dental emergencies in an offgrid and austere environments. I just got the episode uploaded to YouTube and posted to the show description in my Event Calendar.
Budget Prepping
This dental episode received some feedback about the cost of buying herbs, especially when a formula has lots of ingredients. I also got feedback and questions about the costs of prepping in general.
I will do a post and YouTube video on how to keep herbalism and prepping with herbs affordable. In regard to the costs of prepping, however, here are my thoughts.
Don’t Wait on Perfect Preps
Don’t wait to find the perfect supplies or until you can afford the most tacticool gear. If you do, you’ll be waiting a long time to prep. What happens between now and whenever you might put the world’s most awesome preps together if you have an emergency? You will have nothing ready, that’s what.
It’s better to have something ready than to have nothing ready. It doesn’t matter to me if your first aid kit isn’t herbal. I just want you to have one and know how to use it. It doesn’t matter if there is a better knife, or a lighter tent, or a better role of duct tape for your bug out bag. Just put something together.
Keep Upgrading Your Preps As You Can
You can always upgrade later. After you put the essentials together, then look for easy, affordable upgrades. Let’s take these dental kits, for example. You could upgrade your toothbrush to a neat, naturally antimicrobial, folding toothbrush. It’s cleaner and takes up less space, making it perfect for your bug out bag.
You could also upgrade the dental equipment. This is the kit I have. It’s basic, but it does a lot. If you really want to beef up your dental health preps, you could also pick up these forceps and elevators in case you need to do an extraction.
Where There Is No Dentist
If the idea of doing an extraction or any other dental care post-SHTF makes you nervous, you need to get Hesperian’s book, Where There is No Dentist. You can get free access to it on Hesperian.org as a PDF. You can read it online, but I suggest you print it out and put it with your preps. At the very least, download it. Internet access isn’t going to be reliable, if it’s even available, during a crisis.
You may, however, find purchasing a copy is less expensive than the paper and ink to print it. You can even buy it used on Amazon for an even better deal. But, if you already have enough printer paper and ink, and don’t have the cash, that PDF is a better choice.
Whichever route you choose, get a copy, read it, and store it with your dental supplies.
My Budget Dental Prep Experiment
Here’s a video I did going to my local dollar and discount stores to show how to put a bunch of preps together quickly and cheaply. I also wrote more about these dollar store dental preps in an article for The Organic Prepper site.
Putting the Pieces Together
Don’t stress about the costs of prepping. Just prep something and improve with time when funds allow.
To recap:
- Get the basic supplies to keep your mouth and teeth healthy.
- Get a copy of Where There Is No Dentist whichever way fits your budget best.
- Upgrade your dental supplies over time, whenever you have an extra $10 or $20.
Super simple. Now, it’s your turn. What do you have in your preps for dental health? What dollar store supplies have you put into your preps? Let me know in the comments!