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Having a bug-out bag with a few survival tampons can go a long way, and not in the sense of being used in a traditional way. For the sake of discussing women’s tampons, let’s only think of them as a survival tool, as a tampon has many survival uses and is an item that’s been used for many years by other preppers, so you decide if it’ll go into your kit.
Let’s face it, there is nothing more manly than a dude who is willing to use a tampon for survival.
In this post, we are going to think outside the box. Many countries look at tampons as medical devices and are sometimes used in surgery for hemostasis. During my research, tampons for plugging holes can date back to as early as world war 1, medics used to carry them in their first aid kit to use on bullet punctures to stop bleeding.
But in our case, we will be using tampons for survival and we’ll go over the many uses of a survival tampon. So we will look at 10 different ways to use a survival tampon for a survival situation.
What to look for in a survival tampon:
Since there are a lot of brands and styles of these things the main thing to look for when getting these is the tube, you want to be able to use this casing and you want them in a waterproof wrapper which is usually coming together.
The casing can come apart, and there is a string, just pull out a highly absorbent material that is a cotton fiber, and after you unroll it will give you a little pad
1. The pad for injuries
If you don’t have anything to dress up a cut then you can use one of these, just cut the string off and place it on the wound, and use some tape to secure it into place.
2. Stop nose bleeds
You may have a runny nose and it could be blood. Cut small pieces to stick into your nose and it will stop the nose from bleeding.
3. Fire starting material
These fibers are really good for starting fires and tearing them apart and breaking them up into little fluffy piles can make for great fire tinder. Lighting it, it will burn really well.
5. Survival tampon as a candle wick
Take a piece, roll it into a small birthday candle-size piece and if you have something like a soda can, cut 80% off, poor some olive oil into the container, and set your piece of wick in there and it’s going to burn for a really long time.
6. Filtration Water
If you have something like a water bottle, leave the cap on, and cut somewhere in the middle, when you have this bottle upside down, remove the cap and shove the tampon in the open bottle.
Packed nice and tight down in the bottleneck where the next is, have some cotton sticking out of the bottom. With the other half of the bottle, you are able to pour the water into the bottle.
And this is one of the most important uses for a survival tampon since water is the number one thing in a survival situation. This filtration is not perfect, it’s not something you’ll want to drink but it will remove a lot of harmful sediment and particles.
As always, even purifying water in this manner it is recommended to boil water getting water from the outdoors in a survival situation.
7. Water filtration straw
A straw in a pinch but this type will not remove things like giardia or cryptosporidium or some of the minerals in the water but you are able to use it as a straw in a worst-case scenario type of situation.
All you have to do is, cut most of the cotton off, where the string is attached, leave this little part and then stick it back into the straw, so this will work to filter out as much as we possibly can.
Only try if you are absolutely dying of thirst. Now, if you boil the water first it will be fine.
8. Fishing bobber
Since the wrapper is airtight and waterproof, just take a pair of scissors and cut a small piece off, take a fishing line or something and wrap up the end of it and then you are able to just tie it onto your fishing line or string.
9. Cordage
If you are wanting to make a deadfall snare, all you have to do is tie a piece of 3-5” of the tampon string between sticks. You really do not need much string to make a Paiute deadfall trap.
10. Blow dart
Make a blow-dart gun out of the straw and a piece of cotton, a toothpick, or a small stick. Native Americans have used this type of primitive device for hunting for thousands of years and in a pinch, you could make something like this too.
Conclusion
No matter if you are bugging in or bugging out, these are great tools to have as a multi-use survival item. Another good thing is they are cheap, last a long time and inside your first aid / med kit it doesn’t take much space up at all if you are ever in a pinch, these can be very helpful to you.
Survival tampons are like a swiss army knife, they just have so many purposes and I am sure there are a lot more out there.
