About the Book
The Essential Guide to Medical Preparedness is “An easy, step-by-step Guide to handling injury, infectious disease, chronic illness, pregnancy, childbirth, sanitation, personal hygiene, mental health, and more with Essential oils, herbs, Basic medic skills, Basic reflexology & acupressure, and a healthy lifestyle using food storage.”
The book starts out speaking to the nature of Medical Preparedness, then reviews the most important medical supplies & skills a person might need in an economic collapse situation before moving on to covering treatment of minor cuts and scrapes all the way up to medical emergencies, treating children, handling infectious diseases, childbirth techniques, and SO much more, but instead of your typical first aid manual, this book focuses on using holistic medicine and healing techniques for those who wish to avoid traditional medical solutions.
About the Author
Julie Behling-Hovdal is the owner and author of the blog www.essentialsurvival.org, host of a weekly online TV episode at EssentialSurvival.tv, and host of The Essential Survival Radio Show on The Survival Mom Radio network.
She began her holistic health journey in 2005 when she implemented lifestyle changes and used Young Living essential oils and supplements to get off of prescription drugs. She is a certified reflexologist, and has a Reflexology & Holistic healing practice in Salt Lake City, UT.
What I Liked
I loved that there is just SO much great information in this book! When it comes to the medical field, there is just an incredible amount of information to cover, and Julie did a great job discerning what to include.
As an ER nurse, my colleagues and I used to joke that we had to know a little bit about everything, but that we were hardly experts on anything.
We never knew what was going to walk through that ER door or roll in with the ambulance. This book is very similar. She gives you some great information for a very wide variety of subjects, which gives you the basics to be able to make quick, life-altering decisions in some cases.
You will not be an expert after reading this book, but you WILL be much more well equipped to handle medical emergencies.
Each section has multiple solutions for each ailment. For example, in the section about Smoke Inhalation (Pg. 101-102), she lists Essential oils that could be used, as well as herbs, and reflexology for treatment.
This is great because you can use what you have on hand. Conventional medicine often does not offer these kinds of choices!
You either have the drug to treat, or you don’t, but with this book you could easily use herbs if you didn’t have the correct Essential Oil, or you could solely use reflexology if you don’t have the proper herbs or EOs.
I also love that she stresses the importance of lifestyle and real food in your holistic healing. Medicine (even herb based ones) cannot fix everything.
If you’re putting junk into your body, you’re going to get junk in return, and vice versa for real, healthy food. Please keep this in mind when trying to make big changes in your healthcare.
Last, the colored appendices in the back were extremely informative and well illustrated.
What I Learned
While I’ve been in the medical field for quite some time, I’ve only been learning about and practicing a more holistic approach to health for the past 2 years or so, and I learned many, many new things while searching through this book.
I can’t list everything I learned because that would take 2 weeks to read, , but these are a few just off the top of my head:
The sections on reflexology and Acupressure, although brief, were very informative, and were probably my favorite sections in the whole book. I’ll certainly be practicing on Little Man and my husband haha (Pg. 44-49)
The list of Herbs to Have on Hand (Pg. 29- 37) was also very informative
Appendix 4 about Emergency Childbirth was a fantastic guide. As someone who is very interested in midwifery and natural childbirth, I was impressed by the amount of quality information provided.
What I Didn’t Like
This section isn’t necessarily about what I didn’t like as much as a guide to what this book is NOT. In my opinion, this book is NOT a read it cover-to-cover type of book. It has a wealth of information that will be helpful in thousands of medical situations; however, in my opinion, it would be best used on a case by case basis.
For example, instead of buying the book and reading it in one sitting, or a week, or a month… maybe read the introductory chapters and then keep it with your first aid supplies or near your herbal medicine cabinet.
When your child (or husband haha) comes to you with a cut or burn, you can quickly flip through the book and use the table of contents to find the section labeled Soft Tissue Wounds (pg. 58) and read about various holistic treatment options for abrasions, cuts, & scrapes.
This book is also NOT for people who are unwilling to consider holistic remedies, or who are looking for information about traditional medical treatments and prescription or over-the-counter drugs.
This book is all about natural healing, holistic remedies, and listening to your whole body instead of spot-treating symptoms.
As long as you are aware of those things and are ok with them, I think you are going to LOVE this valuable resource!Why Should I Buy this Amazing Book? and Where Can I Get it?
As mentioned above, if you are looking for a great resource to have on hand in case of medical emergencies in which there is no doctor available, or if you would like to learn how to treat yourself and your family without using conventional medicine, or BOTH, this is a book that you NEED in your Prepper Library arsenal. You can find it on Amazon, or on Julie’s Website, http://www.essentialsurvival.org.
What About You?
Do you have Julie’s book? How have you found it useful? What other resources do you recommend for people looking to be medically prepared?A Note About Essential Oils
I used to be a distributor of Young Living Essential Oils, but I no longer sell them. I believe there are several different excellent choices in Essential Oil companies out there to choose from, Young Living being one of them, but each person needs to research the companies on their own to determine which company will be the best fit for their family.
Several of the oils mentioned on this site are Young Living specific blends; however, a quick google search can help you create your own blends from other single essential oils.
I still use Young Living oils on occasion, but I have found Plant Therapy to also have excellent quality oils at about half the price, so I have begun to purchase my oils there instead.
