What should be in a home first aid kit

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

When completing a home first-aid kit, people rush to two extremes: they put cotton wool and green stuff in a box, or buy medicines that will be enough to open a pharmacy. Lifehacker has compiled a "first aid kit for a healthy person", which contains only those drugs for which there is no time to run, but which will really come in handy.

A home first aid kit includes a minimum set of medicines that should always be at hand. There is no need to keep a battery of bottles with syrups for different types of coughs, to clog the refrigerator shelf with means to maintain immunity and eubiotics with "good bacteria", to buy antibiotics without a doctor's prescription. After all, 24-hour pharmacies are available to almost everyone, and people with chronic illnesses know how much money they need to keep at home.

A universal first-aid kit contains what is required urgently and suddenly, it helps to wait for a doctor and can be used by people without medical education.

Disclaimer. Before purchasing and using drugs, consult your doctor.

The article lists the main active ingredients of the preparations. Trade names may vary, and hundreds of different drugs are available with the same active ingredient. Make the choice of your remedy, focusing on the recommendations of the doctor and your wallet, and for convenience, use the medication service for the active substance.

1. Dressing material

Cotton wool. Bandage. Gauze napkins. Patch. Elastic bandage. Gloves. Difficulties constantly arise with these essentials. Everyone knows that they should be at home. But when they are urgently needed, they cannot be found. And if cotton wool can still be found in a cosmetic bag, then everything is bad with a bandage and napkins. When you are hurt, you have no time to remember where what lies. Dressings need to be taken and blood is stopped, so keep your first aid kit stocked up.

2. Shoe covers

Do you think shoe covers are not needed at home? Still as needed. “They called the doctor, but he didn’t take off his shoes”, “The paramedic trampled in the hallway” - you either heard such complaints, or you yourself at least once uttered them. Give out shoe covers to the doctor and ambulance staff, this is a penny solution to a sore problem.

3. Medical devices

Even the healthiest people should have a thermometer and tonometer. Temperature and fluctuations in blood pressure happen to everyone, and treatment depends on the indications of the simplest devices.

4. Painkillers and antipyretics

Paracetamol, ibuprofen, nimesulide are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. All three drugs must be added to the medicine cabinet. They differ in time of action, anti-inflammatory activity. Practice shows that if the temperature does not drop from paracetamol, then ibuprofen helps; if ibuprofen fails, nimesulide will save. As a remedy for headache and toothache, drugs help in different ways, depending on individual tolerance. It is important not to get carried away and not to use all the medicines with an interval of half an hour, but to follow the instructions in the instructions and dosage.

5. Antispasmodics

A sharp attack of aching pain can be a symptom of smooth muscle spasm. Most often the head (with vascular tension) and abdomen (with spasm of the abdominal organs) suffer. One of the safest drugs to help in this case is drotaverine. It has few side effects, the main of which is uncontrolled admission by patients who suppress pain instead of curing the cause of its occurrence.

6. Antiseptics

Stop smearing yourself with green stuff, this is the last century. You can treat the wound so that nothing pinches and does not leave traces of dye, you can use good antiseptics. For example, chlorhexidine. Antiseptics have many more uses. In summer, you can treat your feet and armpits so that there is no unpleasant smell of sweat. Treat mucous membranes (even with a sore throat). Treat surfaces and various objects if you need to disinfect them. Unlike the beloved hydrogen peroxide, special antiseptics do not dry out the skin. Blood is also not stopped, but wounds that are healed without medical intervention will heal anyway (with the help of a tight bandage), and if stitches are needed, peroxide will not save.

7. Wound healing drugs

Panthenol should be in the form of a scald spray at home. Contrary to popular advice, burns should not be lubricated with oil, bacon and everything that grandmothers like to use. A burn is one of the most dangerous injuries that is difficult to heal. And even applying a special ointment is painful. Let's say thanks to modern release forms that will cope with minor burns and help you wait for a doctor if an injury requires a doctor's supervision.

Panthenol or solcoseryl in the form of ointments and gels will cope with minor household injuries, cuts, abrasions. It is even better if the composition of panthenol is combined with an antiseptic, the same chlorhexidine.

8. A set of medicines "for colds"

Most often, we get sick just like this: the nose is stuffy, itchy throat, cough, fever. NSAIDs cope with fever (it was written about them above), for other manifestations of acute respiratory viral infections, symptomatic treatment is used. A set of basic tools is needed so that you do not have to run to the pharmacy when most of all you want to lie under the covers and just sleep. So, how to save yourself during the period of acute respiratory infections.

Interferon … Many drugs ending in "-feron" help the body to quickly connect antibodies to fight the virus. Store candles and sprays in the refrigerator, otherwise they are useless.

Vasoconstrictor nasal drops with oxymetazoline … Have you heard about drug addiction and the eternal runny nose, from which only constant instillation will save? These are the consequences of using drugs of the old generation. Modern options allow you to hold out for 5-7 days, instilling the drug only twice a day. Result: the virus retreated, the addiction did not appear.

Sore throat remedies with antiseptics … Tablets and lozenges are taken to relieve pain and make swallowing easier. Some contain antibiotics that should not be used without medical supervision. Keep medications with antiseptics and enzymes, such as lysozyme, at home. Read the instructions and do not eat for two hours after taking it so that the medicinal substances have time to take effect.

9. Antihistamines

Antihistamines are used not only to combat allergic reactions. They also help relieve swelling in case of colds (and, to a minimum, use vasoconstrictor drops in the nose) and get rid of itching after insect bites (if you apply an ointment with a drug to the bite site). Now there are a lot of drugs that do not cause drowsiness, made on the basis of suprastin, dimetindene, cetirizine, in convenient forms and different dosages for children and adults.

10. Sorbents

Activated carbon is a time-tested remedy, no doubt. It helps when you have eaten something wrong or caught an intestinal infection. And stories tell about the benefits of coal with excessive alcohol consumption. And still they don't know how to use it. Drinking two black tablets is not enough, they drink coal in packs! The pleasure is doubtful. Meanwhile, intestinal sorbents based on smectite and lignin appeared, which are used one tablet at a time.

11. Remedies for constipation

The best remedy for this problem is diet. But the diet will work sometime later, and constipation happens here and now. The problem is solved in an elementary way. From the inside, lactulose syrup acts (which is attributed to infants, but which works best for adults), from the outside - candles with glycerin. No addiction, no side effects.

12. Means for oral rehydration

These are true friends of sorbents and antipyretics. In case of poisoning, diarrhea, vomiting or at very high temperatures, the body needs to restore the water-salt balance. Problems begin when you are not thirsty in such a state. It is easier to make an effort and drink one glass of a solution that will restore strength than trying to pour in liters of compote.

13. Medicines for hypertensive patients

The most dangerous medicine in the home medicine cabinet is captopril, which is now recommended to be used instead of the popular nitroglycerin. If you do not have problems with blood pressure and blood vessels, you should still have captopril: this is a drug that can be given to a patient in case of a hypertensive crisis (one of the most common causes of death in the world) before an ambulance arrives.

Study the symptoms before buying the medicine.

Algorithm of actions: noticed the symptoms, called an ambulance, put the patient to bed, provided him with an air flow. If he is taking any blood pressure medications, give them. And only if there are no such drugs, put a captopril tablet under the tongue. Important: tell the ambulance what you used. We remember that this is not green stuff and not coal, it is strictly forbidden to distribute captopril with “flies in the eyes”.