Home Doctor vs The Lost Ways: Medical Reference or Pioneer Skills Guide?

Home Doctor and The Lost Ways both serve the long-horizon prepper who wants depth — not a beginner checklist, but a real reference to work from. But they cover completely different pillars of preparedness. Home Doctor is a medical reference: 304 pages organized by condition, covering what to do at home when a doctor is unavailable, with a herbal-remedy appendix and printable symptom-action charts. The Lost Ways is a pioneer-skills reference: 300 pages of old-time practical techniques — smoking meat without power, making acorn flour, building a charcoal water filter, constructing a rocket stove — organized as a step-by-step project guide. Both carry 60-day ClickBank refunds. The decision is which gap you need to fill first: knowing what to do when someone in your household gets sick, or knowing how to produce and preserve food, water, and heat without modern infrastructure.

Quick Comparison

	Home Doctor	The Lost Ways
Best For	Households without a first-aid manual who want a home-medicine reference covering 40+ conditions, a herbal-remedy appendix, and printable symptom-action charts for when professional care is unavailable	Hands-on preppers and homesteaders who want one organized reference for pre-industrial survival skills — smoking meat, acorn flour, charcoal water filters, rocket stoves, shelter building — and will actually build the projects
Core Gap Filled	Medical emergency preparedness — knowing what to do for infections, dental pain, burns, fevers, and other common crises when a doctor is hard to reach	Pioneer-era practical skills — producing and preserving food, purifying water, building shelter, and making fire using methods that require no electricity or modern supply chains
Standout Section	Herbal-remedy appendix: common plants organized by condition, with preparation instructions (teas, poultices, tinctures), real dosage guidance, and photos to confirm plant identification	Food preservation and water chapters: detailed step-by-step instructions for smoking and curing meat without refrigeration, building a charcoal water filter from scratch, and making acorn flour — all testable weekend projects
Length	304 pages	~300 pages
Format	Main digital book + quick-reference symptom-action charts + herbal-remedy appendix + printable first-aid checklists + two bonus reports	Main guide PDF + bonus PDF (The Lost Ways 2) + bonus PDF (Surviving the Economic Collapse) + printable pantry and tool checklists + access to a private Facebook group
Price	$35 one-time	$34 one-time (watch for post-checkout upsells that can add recurring billing)
Recurring Billing	None	Base guide is one-time; some post-checkout add-ons can include recurring charges — read each offer screen
Refund	60 days, ClickBank-honored	60 days, ClickBank-honored
ClickBank Gravity	6.23	4.10
Earned Per Sale	$34.96	$66.76 (highest EPS in the survival niche — includes upsell conversions)
Rating	9.0/10	8.7/10

Home Doctor: Best for households without a medical reference

Best use case: You do not own a home first-aid manual and want one reference that tells you what to do at home when a doctor is unavailable or hours away. Your specific concern is medical: infections, toothaches, ear infections, burns, fevers, and other common crises. You want something organized by condition with a clear “when to seek emergency care” boundary for each one, a herbal-remedy section with real dosage guidance, and printable charts you can reference quickly without digging through chapters.

Method: A 304-page digital reference organized by common condition type: infections, dental emergencies, burns and wounds, fever management, gastrointestinal issues, and more. Each chapter covers symptoms, home treatment steps, improvised supplies, and a “when to go to the ER” box that tells you when home treatment is appropriate and when it is not. The herbal-remedy appendix is the standout section: it lists common plants by condition with preparation instructions (teas, poultices, tinctures), dosage guidance, and photos to confirm plant identification. Printable first-aid checklists cover CPR, wound care, and burn treatment — designed to go on a binder shelf where you can grab them without opening the book. Two bonus reports (“The Lost Remedies” and “Wild Edibles”) overlap with the main book but add some additional plant entries.

Strength: The “when to seek emergency care” box in every chapter is the most important feature in a home-medicine guide: it tells you the boundary between home treatment and professional care, which is the most critical judgment when you are managing a medical situation alone. The herbal-remedy section is more specific and usable than anything in a general survival skills guide — plant photos, real dosage guidance, preparation instructions, and condition-specific applications. At $35 one-time with no recurring billing, Home Doctor is one of the most affordable home-medicine references at this depth. Rating 9.0/10 — the highest in the saltbench survival catalog. Printable symptom-action charts let you act fast in an emergency without re-reading the book. The 304 pages give medical coverage that no pioneer-skills guide can match.

Weakness: This is home care — not wilderness or advanced field medicine. It will not teach suturing, advanced wound closure, or emergency field procedures. The basic first-aid content overlaps with free Red Cross and Mayo Clinic guides; you pay for curation, organization, and the herbal section rather than original research. The author credit is listed as a “team of doctors” with no individual named credentials. The two bonus reports largely repeat the main book. If your gap is practical survival skills — producing food, purifying water without modern supplies, building heat — Home Doctor does not address any of that.

Cost reality: $35 one-time. No recurring billing. No required upsell to receive the full book and bonuses. Refund: 60 days, ClickBank-honored.

The Lost Ways: Best for hands-on preppers who will build the projects

Best use case: You are a hands-on prepper or homesteader who wants one organized reference for old-school survival skills and intends to practice them. You want to know how to smoke and cure meat without a refrigerator, make acorn flour from scratch, build a charcoal water filter, construct a rocket stove from scrap materials, and build a survival shelter. You have time, tools, and space to try these projects. You want step-by-step instructions — not a general overview — for skills that work when the grid is down and the supply chain is broken.

Method: A ~300-page PDF organized around pre-industrial survival skills in four areas: food preservation, water, shelter, and fire. Food preservation is the deepest section: smoking and curing meat by the traditional method (salt ratios, drying times, temperature ranges), building a smokehouse from materials you can source locally, making lard for long-term fat storage, fermenting vegetables, and processing acorn flour step by step from harvest to finished product. The water chapter covers building a charcoal water filter from layers of sand, charcoal, and gravel — a project you can complete in a day. The shelter section covers notched-log construction basics and debris shelters. The fire chapter covers rocket stove construction from cinder blocks or scrap metal, and fire-making without modern tools. Each chapter is project-based with step-by-step instructions.

Strength: The Lost Ways delivers skills you can physically test. You can build the charcoal filter, try the acorn flour process, or construct the rocket stove this weekend — and find out if it works. That testability is the core value: these are not theoretical concepts but documented traditional methods with specific quantities, times, and materials. One searchable PDF beats hunting through 40 forum threads for the same steps. The guide covers a wide range of skills in one reference: food, water, shelter, and fire. The inclusion of The Lost Ways 2 as a bonus adds additional techniques without extra purchase. At $34 one-time for the base guide, the price-to-depth ratio is strong for hands-on preppers who will actually build the projects. Our short answer on whether The Lost Ways is worth it is in the guide.

Weakness: The Lost Ways includes post-checkout upsells that can carry recurring billing — the highest EPS ($66.76) in the survival niche reflects those conversion paths. Read each offer screen carefully and only add what you specifically want. Without time, tools, or outdoor space to practice the projects, the guide sits unread — it is a project book, not a quick-reference manual. Much of the content is drawn from older public-domain books and free archives; you pay for curation and the project format, not original research. The Facebook group included is quiet and adds almost no practical value. The “economic collapse” bonus is a thin 30-page add-on that repeats basic prepping advice. Medical coverage is not here: you get food, water, shelter, and fire — but nothing on treating injuries or illness.

Cost reality: $34 one-time at checkout. Some post-checkout add-ons can include recurring billing — read each offer screen before clicking. Refund: 60 days, ClickBank-honored.

Which one should you choose?

Pick Home Doctor if:

• Your specific gap is medical: you have no home first-aid reference and want to know what to do when a doctor is unavailable or hours away
• The herbal-remedy appendix is your priority — specific plants organized by condition, with preparation methods, dosage guidance, and identification photos
• You already have practical survival skills (food preservation, water, shelter) from other sources and want to add medical coverage
• You want no recurring billing risk at any stage of the purchase — $35 flat, no post-checkout upsells
• Printable symptom-action charts you can pull off a shelf in a medical emergency matter to you
• You want the highest-rated guide in the saltbench survival catalog (9.0/10 rating)

Pick The Lost Ways if:

• Your specific gap is practical skills: you want to know how to produce and preserve food, filter water, build heat, and construct shelter without modern infrastructure — and you will actually build the projects
• Hands-on, project-based learning is your priority: you want step-by-step instructions for smoking meat, making acorn flour, building a charcoal filter, and constructing a rocket stove
• You have time, outdoor space, and basic tools to practice and test the skills you learn
• You want the broadest traditional-skills reference at the lowest price in the survival niche ($34 one-time for the base guide)
• You are a homesteader or rural dweller where these skills have immediate practical application
• You understand and will read the post-checkout offer screens carefully to avoid recurring billing on upsells

Real talk

Home Doctor and The Lost Ways are not alternatives for the same buyer need. They cover different columns of the same preparedness table: Home Doctor covers medical emergencies; The Lost Ways covers food production, water purification, and shelter construction. A fully prepared household eventually needs both. The question is which gap is most acute right now.

Home Doctor’s stronger gravity (6.23 vs 4.10) suggests more active buyers in the current market are prioritizing medical coverage — which makes sense, since most people have at least some food and water basics but relatively few have a home-medicine reference organized for conditions that actually happen. The “when to seek emergency care” guidance in every chapter is something no pioneer-skills guide can replace.

The Lost Ways earns the highest EPS in the survival niche ($66.76) — but that figure includes affiliate conversions on post-checkout upsells, some of which carry recurring billing. The base guide at $34 is a genuine value for hands-on preppers who will practice the skills. The recurring-billing risk makes it the more important of the two to buy carefully, reading every offer screen before clicking.

The complementary path is the honest recommendation: Home Doctor first ($35, no recurring, no risk) to close the medical gap that most preppers neglect, then The Lost Ways ($34 base, read upsell screens) when you are ready to develop hands-on traditional skills. Combined base cost is $69, and together they cover the two pillars most people skip when they focus only on food and water basics. If you can only buy one today, identify your most urgent gap: medical coverage (choose Home Doctor) or hands-on pioneer skills you will actually practice (choose The Lost Ways).