This book is an absolute essential for any survival library. Things you would think are simple just aren’t.
Where There is No Dentist: Amazon Prime $16.15
Tools and Required Implements:
Dental Work/Extraction Kits $10-$160
Dental Picks w/Mirror $9.99
Temporary (6 month) Fillings: Zinc Oxide/Clove Oil, All Temp Fillings
Permanent Fillings: Glass Ionomer Automix, All Glass Ionomer
Injectible Lidocaine
Sterile Syringes (3cc is fine)
Luer Lock Needles (18 and 24/25guage)
Fish Antibiotics (Penicillin)
Erythromycin (for those allergic to Penicillin)
Schedule H Antibiotics from India
It seems like everything that I look into when it comes to survival is not simple. You would think that the extent of survival dentistry you need to know doesn’t extend further than “yank the darn tooth,” but that is not the case. I sat down and actually read the book, “Where There Is No Dentist,” by Murray Dickson, and I highly suggest that you buy this $16 book, and some of the tools and medications that will make substantive dentistry possible. There are very few non-fatal injuries as debilitating as tooth pain (disk pain of the back being the only one I can think of worse), and if left to fester, tooth maladies themselves can be fatal. The book was apparently written to help volunteer medical workers in African villagers, but it includes everything that you will need in a survival situation.
A lot of the book is meant to teach the basics of oral care, as well as how to teach it, but there are also some priceless guidelines for everything from diagnosing an abscess to extracting a tooth, including important information on how to inject Lidocaine.
What I found the most disheartening was how confident I was that I could do dental work with no training. I actually bought dental instruments on Ebay years ago, but there are all kinds of issues covered in the book that you wouldn’t think about. What if someone’s jaw is broken and the teeth feel loose? The book shows you how to use an old needle and stitches to make a splint for the teeth, so you can wait for the bones to heal. What if someone has a bad puss filled infection? Do you extract the teeth? No, you give antibiotics and wait for the infection to come down first.
The nice thing I can also say is that dentistry, at its simplest, is not rocket science. The book explains how to scoop out tooth decay and make both temporary and permanent fillings. It tells you what to buy for basic tools, filling materials, and even how and where to inject Lidocaine. The meat and potatoes of modern dentistry is in selling you the latest and greatest ways to deal with old problems. This book tells you what has always worked, and still works today. But most importantly, you can sit down with this book and learn how to diagnose just about every common malady of the mouth that you will encounter in a survival situation. African villages are off grid, with very little outside resources. Much of the book is about dental care, and how to teach dental care, so the parts about fixing bad mouth problems really aren’t that long or involved. But they will keep you from making some really bad mistakes. Once you pull a tooth there is no going back, and pulling a tooth isn’t always the right decision.
The antibiotics in the book are very limited, but again, they work. As a non-medical person, getting those antibiotics is a whole other thing. I have explained before that you can get the most popular antibiotics here in the US from pet suppliers. The book suggests Penicillin, and Erythromycin, both of which are readily available in capsule form for fish. The medicine is exactly the same. If you care to do a little more research into antibiotics in general, you’ll find a few others available for pets that are very useful. I also included a link above to a current website selling Schedule H antibiotics from India. You don’t really save anything over the US based fish suppliers, and they’ll probably steal your credit card, but I did test them with some blood pressure meds for which I have a prescription and they were here within a few days. Nothing bad to report so far, except that they call you to try to sell you Viagra lol.
 A basic tool kit will help you diagnose and treat a lot of the maladies in the book. |  This is a large kit that usually goes for $125-$150. It has extractor pliers and elevators of different angles, as well as tweezers and other instruments you’ll probably need. |
If there is one difficult issue I have found with dentistry it is in finding a good source for injectable Lidocaine. In some of the dentistry kits I have linked to you will see a metal syringe instrument. This is a plunger device that works with little 1.7/1.8 millileter vials of various flavors of Lidocaine. The Ebay source I have linked to above will require a regular syringe and needle, and from what I have read, you are best to get both a #18 and #24ish. The former is for extracting the Lidocaine from the bottle. The latter is for the actual injections. And again, the book, at a ridiculous price of $16, will show you how to hold the needle, and where to inject for both upper and lower tooth work. The book also notes a detail I have seen about injecting Lidocaine before, that you have to draw a little before you inject because you don’t want to be on a blood vessel. If blood comes out you have to find a different place. It also warns against using Lidocaine with epinephrine, which is added to stop bleeding, inside the mouth.
 Zinc Oxide and clove oil are concoction the book suggests for temporary fillings of up to six months. |  Glass ionomer cement is a two part as well, and Ebay has these nice auto-mix pens. They seem to be used for teeth glue as much as fillings, but hey, they work. |
 A dental syringe is used with disposable vials of Lidocaine. Buy regular syringes and needles if you can only get the Lidocaine in the larger bottles. |  I have seen the small 1.7 ml bottles included with suture kits on Ebay, but they sometimes have epinephrine in them, which is not suggested for inside the mouth. Epi is used to stop bleeding when suturing wounds. |
 This is the only Lidocaine I have found in bottles, and it isn’t cheap. |  Look through the Ebay listings carefully if you want to buy antibiotics. There are companies that market “fish flex” and such in white aftermarket bottles, but there are now a lot of people selling grey market blister packs of the same stuff, and they’ll keep much longer I think. |
I’m going to mention here, because this is a very short article, that for many people this level of prepping is absurd. We often get meathead comments, many of which are deleted, explaining that you really only have to prep for a short term emergency, and that all of this stuff is for fools. The fools are people who insist on clinging to their normalcy bias, not the preppers. I read an interesting story this week that Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne keeps 3 months of food and 10 million in gold for his employees, preparing for the next crash. Most likely he is a Mormon and lives in Utah lol. All of the survival food is being produced in Utah, and is it because they’re just nuts? No, I don’t think so. From what I gather they have been prepping for decades, and if I had to guess, it has been since Richard Nixon decoupled gold from our currency in 1971.
Anyone who is a student of history knows that every monetary system, once it leaves an honest connection to some sort of physical asset, usually gold and silver, crashes at some point to zero. My regular readers know that I believe we are in a lot more trouble than just financial thanks to the disastrous science experiment we live in known as Geoengineering, but I also do think that they are stretching the worldwide financial system out as thin as they can in preparation for a day of reckoning for our entire planet. If you personally want to stay in your normalcy bias cocoon, and deny that we are on the verge of a collapse, that’s fine. It is easier to think that “it would be better to die anyway.” But I don’t think you’re going to feel that way as you starve to death with paralyzing tooth pain.
On the other hand, I’m not an advocate of standing on a soap box and trying to change the world. It doesn’t work anymore. Just ask Irwin Schiff, the renowned anti-income tax crusader who died this week in jail shackled to his hospital bed, still believing that his appeals were finally going to succeed. The good guys lose in this “oilum ha-sheker” (hebrew for world of lies) that we live in. But regardless of the way you think it will end, I do think that you are an idiot if you don’t plan for your family to survive the coming collapse, at least as long as you can. The powerful of this world know exactly what is going on, and they have a plan. Whether it actually works or not, I’d like to live to at least see what it was.
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There are a few dental kits available on the web, and a variety of selected instruments can be found on eBay. Until very recently, no kit has had the critical elements of required dental hygiene tools, assorted extraction instruments, and necessary materials, medicaments, and matrixes to place restorations. Those that are available are either completely lacking in proper supplies, or the manufacturers are either unknown or untrustworthy. Either way, every kit currently available is not complete.
Dental Essentials, LLC has recently developed a kit that fulfills each of the requirements necessary to professionally clean teeth, temporarily and intermediately restore teeth, extract broken and infected teeth, and treat oral trauma. This kit can be found at prepperdentist.com. All instruments arrive in pre-sterilized pouches ready for use. The kit comes in a custom cordura nylon case, to house each material and instrument accordingly.
The last thing you want is to have the tools for a project and then find that they are of such poor quality that they do not work as they should. The kit bag and its primary line of essential instruments are all made in the USA of the highest quality and come with a lifetime warranty. The only thing this kit lacks is the anesthetic supplies, as they are regulated by the FDA. (In full disclosure, I am a consultant for the kit, and I chose the components because they are brands I use every day in my private dental practice.)
I wanted to add to this conversation, my experiences. I am familiar with the effects of many plants, trees, roots, etc. One of the best friends of any traveler down in the southern regions of the States is the Prickly Ash, aka: Devil’s walking stick and many other names depending upon the region you are in. The tree is quite remarkable and the painkilling properties of the sap is simply put, astounding. Now, on me, repeat on me, not only does it completely numb my entire mouth, like I swished lidocaine around in it , but it also kills the nerve of the tooth that is exposed ( about a week of continuous use). Again let me say that was my experience and may not be anyone else’s.
The tree is short maybe 15 ft. tops or there abouts, it has large bumps all over it, in the center of each bump is a single thorn, that also varies from tree to tree. In the Spring I slash the bark and render a fairly large slab of sap, I bag it in plastic and put it in the freezer to keep it potent. If left out, it’s potency diminishes over time. It only takes a very small pinch to get the job done and it lasts hours. Keep that in mind if you live down South and look it up to find the specifics of your region.
Thru the years I’ve had to patch my self back together, apply a tourniquet, or collect the teeth knocked out of my head, I’ve never considered the idea of self Dentistry. Got to add it to my pack of what could happen. Thank you.
I want to slowly begin accumulating gold coins as soon asI reach the point where I have what some call “disposable” income. To my thinking it just makes good sense. I’m talking REAL, physical Krugerrands, paid for with CASH. Lay in some silver, also, even though it takes up more space. I like silver US Quarters and Dimes. Oh yeah, first buy a high-quality safe, a security system and/or dog and, of course, high-quality firearms.
You should read more of the articles here, especially the ones on food, as well as gold and silver. Or just ask them to put the krugerands on your eyes lol.
You are indeed correct in trying to inform the public about Dental concerns when there is no available professional care. It is
very debilitating and can be very painful. I have practiced Dentistry for 35 years and have had 3 neck surgeries for herniated discs and several kidney stones. I understand what pain is. A lower molar, in particular, if it goes into an acute pulpitis (infection of the nerve or pulp of the tooth) can be some of the worst pain there is. I have experienced it myself and it ranks up there with kidney stones and acute spinal pain.
All of this discussion of local anesthetics is good but there are many problems associated with it’s administration, not to mention getting your hands on the correct anesthetic. Avoiding the issue of practicing Dentistry without a license, to properly
numb a lower molar that is “hot” or in acute distress is no simple process. A trained Dentist will often have to go back and administer a second carpule (the small glass container they come in) just to achieve reasonable anesthesia. (It is not ideal to administer Dental anesthetic with a regular syringe because it’s essential that continual aspiration- the process of pulling back on the plunger of the device used to give the anesthetic-be performed. That’s hard to do with a regular plastic syringe. Also, knowing the landmarks and where to apply the anesthetic is absolutely necessary. Assuming that you do not know these landmarks, even if you have experience with injections you may not want to proceed here as the risks are serious, you are left with pain control and infection reduction as your best options.
The antibiotic of choice for most root canal specialists is Clindamycin. However, if you are not sure of a persons allergy to certain antibiotics you can do much more harm than good. If you administer Erythromycin to a Penicillin allergic patient you will have some serious problems on your hands. That’s why I recommend an Epi-Pen for every emergency bag. These are not cheap but they are life savers. Allergy to antibiotics can be deadly. Clindamycin is the antibiotic of choice for those allergic to the Penicillin group of antibiotics and that includes Erythromycin which has become the “go to” antibiotic for many oral infections. However, I have found allergy to Clindamycin to be much more rare than the Penicillin group and antibiotics, you might want to try to get your hands on some of that if possible. It comes in 150mg pills or capsules, give two immediately and then one every 4 to 6 hours. Again, if there is a question of allergy, proceed with extreme caution. Without an Epi-Pen I’m not sure I would even want to treat a person with no confidence in the allergic profile.
As discussed, epinephrine added to dental anesthetics is used to keep the substance in the area longer and it does so by constricting the blood vessels. I would guess that a least 75% of anesthetics given in a Dental office contain epinephrine. It provides a longer period in which to work and is safe when administered correctly. However, an accidental injection of an anesthetic with epinephrien into an adjacent vascular area (a group of blood vessels that contain both arteries and veins) can result in a very traumatic experience for a patient as the heart does not like infusion of adrenaline (epinephrine) directly into it’s system. The heart rate will increase and the patient, already traumatized, will not do well. They will probably, and it’s more likely than not, survive the experience, but this should be avoided. So administration of these anesthetics is risky if you are not very experienced. There are anesthetics without epinephrine and perhaps an emergency bag should at least contain some of these. Mepivicaine is a good example, it uses another substance to mimic epinephrine without the hazards of direct injection into a neuro-vascular area.
Emergencies fall into these categories:
1. broken teeth, sharp but no nerve involvement, they do not require immediate serious intervention and can be handled by
some wax over the sharp area or one of the over the counter fill-it-yourself types of treatments. They can be quite valuable
if used properly and should be in an emergency bag. They get a person through for some time and make life much more comfortable.
2. decay…. not something I would consider an emergency, it’s presence is only going to be noticed when it has reached the nerve canal of the tooth. Unless someone it trying to do a direct pulp cap (covering the pulp or nerve of the tooth to reduce pain) I can’t imagine why anyone would be removing decay in an emergency situation. Decay will be noticed once it reaches the pulp and rarely before that. Years ago we would place eugenol or oil of cloves on teeth that had pulp exposures or near pulp exposures. That is a safe material to handle and can be found in many emergency dental kits. It’s properties are “kind to the pulp” and can make an uncomfortable tooth feel better for some time. It is what we call “palliative” care, or care that just addresses the immediate problem. Valuable though. I’d have some around.
3. Assuming no one in the group is adept at the intricate nerve passages of the mouth, it may be best to not try injecting something that may do more harm than good. Fractured needles are not good either and that is another risk. I would concentrate on trying to have some good antibiotics on hand, knowing everyone in the groups allergy status, have some emergency Dental over the counter kits on hand and this: It’s not well known but the synergistic affects of Tylenol and Advil are tremendous. The two add up to more than just the affects of each. However, as with any NSAID like Advil, long term use has been linked to gastric bleeding. This is not for use over a long period of time. In an emergency however, Tylenol (Acetaminophen) and Advil do work together to produce more pain relief than either one individually. As in everything, this is not always the case but it does work for many people so should be considered in the short term. It can often help until antibiotics have had a chance to reduce the pain caused by the acute inflammation (the real source of most Dental pain).
4. Beyond these issues, you get into some serious potential problems that are going to be out of the real spectrum of care you can provide without professional help. Fractured jaws are serious issues, often all that can be done is fixation, keeping the jaw from movement and trying to provide some type of pain relief. Dislocated jaws (the TMJ becomes dislocated) can be solved
in the field, warm compress and moving the lower jaw down and back, feeling it slide back up into it’s normal position. Rare, but good information if needed.
5. Use common sense. Don’t treat something you are not confident in treating. Reading a book, no matter how informative, does not qualify you to perform procedures that could make things worse. Most importantly, try to evaluate which emergencies
could lead to a real risk of death. The most obvious one is acute Dental infection. Pain from a tooth, if treated with antibiotics, will usually subside and the patient will survive. Survival is the only goal here, along with not making things worse.
So, ice, heat, warm salt water rinses, pain meds as mentioned and, if possible, antibiotics. Above all, don’t make things worse.
All of these comments assume a situation beyond what normal, healthy civilization provides. An emergency of severe proportions that mitigates the normal laws that govern our lives and especially the laws that govern the administration of health care. If you start following some of these procedures mentioned here and you are not in a real emergency, you are crossing the legal barriers that society values and follows. Practicing without a license is a felony. But in a real emergency, things have to be evaluated in a different light. Take this stuff seriously. The things I mentioned here apply only to extreme cases, if that is not the situation you will be breaking the law.
I can’t imagine anyone reading all of this, I only post it because I have experienced so many types of pain from so many sources that I know how debilitating it can be. I wish that on no one. But in a post-apocalyptic scenario, death from acute Dental trauma or infection is a real issue. The more we study Egyptian mummies, the more we realize that many of them died from Dental infection that spread and went unchecked, resulting in their demise. In the past, perhaps not now, the number one killer of large cats in the wild (lions etc.) was fractured canine teeth and the resulting infection not treated.
Maybe this is of some value to someone. If not, perhaps it’s a good read to get to sleep.
Just my thoughts. There is nothing worse than taking a bad situation and making it worse. If you are not sure you can help, use extreme caution in whatever care you provide
Thanks for the advice. It’s nice to know that the epi isn’t going to be a big deal and that it actually is used in the mouth. There is so much misinformation out there that you really have to wade through it. We aren’t, of course, talking about an emergency here. We are talking about surviving in a small group of your people, and that the situation requires attention that Advil isn’t going to help. The dentist is dead, and in fact you might not ever meet another actual dentist. Dentistry will be a lost knowledge only found in books, and this book isn’t like a college textbook that will only have a small piece of what you need to know, and that was most likely written by the dental community of salesmen.
I’m a dentist and read this article on dentistry with interest to see what ideas would be discussed. The discussion following about anesthetics needs clarification before somebody gets hurt. The mouth and periorbital areas are one of the safest areas in which to use an anesthetic with a vasoconstrictor, due to generous collateral blood supply in those areas. The blood supply to the tissues there is not compromised adversely by its use. You would not want to use an anesthetic with a vasoconstrictor outside the mouth in an area that would be damaged by having the blood supply blocked for hours, extremities like the nose, ear, fingers, toes, etc.. Most docs use anesthetic without a vasoconstrictor routinely while suturing.
As far as the dental advise given, I think somebody is trying to make money selling a book and some sub harbor freight dental tools that no one would probably ever use. Save your money on the tools. Get some antibiotics and analgesics. Put that in your kit. Most of the time, increased pain and suffering will result if attempting to do work on a tooth yourself. Get the tooth calmed down with NSAIDs/APAP combo ( ibuprofen/acetaminophen) and antibiotics. Cover exposed sensitive areas with something to prevent rapid thermal changes like chewing gum, wax or some of the temporary commercial stuff. Most of that stuff will not stick to the tooth because of moisture contamination. Don’t go digging around in your friends tooth unless you really don’t like him.
I guess you miss the point Larry. We assume you’ll be dead. Note that the title of the article isn’t “where there is no dentist.” It is “when.” The book actually goes into a lot of detail about moisture contamination, but you didn’t buy it. 😉
Exceptionally Good article, Paul. Didn’t know we had so many dentists on GA forums,hahahah! But that’s a very Good thing. We already have an M.D. and me, a trained trauma medic, EMT, and combat experienced meatball bullet hole ‘bodyman’ in our Bug Out ‘Survival club’, but we sure could use a real dentist?? (or even a dentists surgery chair assistant who see’s it all done everyday?) We’ve already got an adequate long term optimal BOL (land) and we have plenty of room for a couple more ‘expert’ asset/skills (electrical/mechanical engineers or medical doctors) people (with no cash requirements) when the S finally does HTF. Anybody out there interested?
Better do your homework – epi is definitely used to prolong the anesthesia by slowing down its removal by the blood supply in the area. Control of bleeding (like following an extraction) is a secondary effect, and is also a good reason for its inclusion.
Author is wrong about the ephinephrine – it is used to prolong the effects of the anesthesia (numbness) in the area in which it is injected, which is a good thing.
Paul, you are the one that has it backwards.
I quote,”Local anesthetics
Adrenaline is added to injectable forms of a number of local anesthetics, such as bupivacaine and lidocaine, as a vasoconstrictor to slow the absorption and, therefore, prolong the action of the anesthetic agent. Due to epinephrine’s vasoconstricting abilities, the use of epinephrine in localized anesthetics also helps to diminish the total blood loss the patient sustains during minor surgical procedures. Some of the adverse effects of local anesthetic use, such as apprehension, tachycardia, and tremor, may be caused by adrenaline. Epinephrine/adrenalin is frequently combined with dental and spinal anesthetics and can cause panic attacks in susceptible patients at a time when they may be unable to move or speak due to twilight anesthesia.[35] Currently the maximum recommended daily dosage for people in a dental setting requiring local anesthesia with a peripheral vasoconstrictor is 10 µg/lb of total body weight.
The lessening of blood loss is the lessor side effect of combining the drugs.
Seriously, do the research!
As you keep telling people about Google, learn to use it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8519713
Ok Ok I give lol. It is the textbook answer. In practical experience it stops bleeding while you are trying to suture, and the mouth is one of the places they say not to use it, which was the point.
Epi’s primary use in local anesthesia is to constrict the blood vessels and prolong anesthesia. You are correct Ithat bleeding is also decreased due to vasoconstriction, but in this case, that’s not the reason for inclusion in local anesthetics.
*write. Sorry for the typo’s. I never proof read, obviously
Thanks for another good right up. I was looking for the lidocaine for stitching , thanks for links. As for dentistry, that sheet scares me. I cant imagine my wife working on my teeth. I don’t even like the dentist doing it. I guess I better get A LOT better at dental hygiene to prevent as much as possible. I have considered talking with a few dentists to feel them out as preppers, or even storing extra food to trade for such services. I started making small(1 gallon) mylar bags up of rice , sugar and flour just for trading. A closed 5 lb bag fits perfectly in the Gallon bags. I got them from amazon in 60 count pacs with oxygen absorbers. I’ll pick up the dental book ,tools and hope I don’t need them. If the severe drought out west doesn’t get better soon, the clock is ticking, just a question of what tumbles the house of cards. Have a good week.
43 years general dentist, 4 Army. In olden days before scraping tartar off teeth painless bone loss helped barbers remove teeth. So did infection. Many times with molar extraction crown broke off roots remained surrounded by chronic infection..read in old books people sucked out the hollow roots perhaps lifetime. Filling teeth is not simple mechanics as decay or cracking may expose nerve and extraction follows not root canal. I am thinking of desperate conditions now. Dental treatment can cause severe pain if you are not trained. Books like this make the mechanics of dental treatment seem simple and they are if you you have years of training otherwise it easy to cause severe pain and damage. Best to ask a dentist if you can watch him for a few days if you are preparing for hard times because it is very easy to get into severe trouble. It’s what I don’t know I don’t know you must worry about.
skip the ebay and buy pet supplies
http://www.allivet.com/p-2637-lidoject-injection-lidocaine-hcl-2-100-ml.aspx
Thanks Chuck, but you know, we know how to use Google too. Did you bother to try to check out? You can’t without a prescription. It isn’t like Lidocaine and antibiotics are rare substances. You have to have a connection if you want to use these kinds of resources.
I learned something a few years back. I came across a Blackhawk medic pack. Bought it from a woman who bids on storage units. I thought $20 was an awesome deal, then I opened it. Inside was a full setup. Iv’s , saline bags, tubes, suture kits, and a few gov’t issue m-16 mags. It wasn’t til I got home and started pulling all the stuff out til I noticed a 4″x8″ metal box. Low and behold, nice syringe kit, with a handful of vials. Unfortunately I didn’t know what I had and ended up bagging it all and gave it to my parents. Who are LDS/Mormon. Yes they have been prepping my whole life. Year food storage for each member of the family. The leaders of the church have been advising food storage for years. Anyway to the point. I learned that if anyone has friends in the military, it’s a good place to start for “advice”. Also the LDS church has the Deseret food pantry that members can order bulk food items prepackaged for storage. Another good source for those preparing. Definitely worth talking to a few missionaries over dinner.