Often, a first-aid kit looks like a warehouse of unnecessary medicines. It gets into it and remains for a long time the drugs that the doctor prescribed for the treatment of a certain disease. And finding the most necessary first aid is not always possible. Therefore, the preparation of a home first aid kit must be approached thoughtfully, taking into account the recommendations of doctors and the composition of the family.

General Recommendations

To ensure that the first-aid kit is always at hand, it is necessary to properly organize the storage of medicines. For them, you need to allocate a plastic box, a container that closes tightly and does not let in sunlight. Most drugs are afraid of bright light and require room temperature storage. Therefore, the box must be put in a locker, so that if necessary it is easy to get it. High humidity is dangerous for medicines; it is not recommended to store them in the bathroom.

Candles, interferon preparations, and some other therapeutic agents are stored in the refrigerator. In a warm room, they can melt, and preparations with protein components can become inactivated. The box with the first-aid kit is stored in a place that small children or animals cannot reach. Medicines are a source of danger for them.

In order not to confuse which medicine is at home in a container, you do not need to take them out of their original packaging and pour them into jars. For each drug, keep the insert instruction, even if it is well known. In an emergency, this will help you quickly determine at what dose to take the medicine. The original packaging is necessary to control expiration dates. On a cardboard box and an individual blister, bottle, or ampoule, the expiration date of the product must be duplicated. Expired medicines are dangerous and should not be used.

List of Necessary Medicines in the Home First Aid Kit

The composition of the first-aid kit is individual in each house, but there are certain groups of drugs that every person should have at hand. They will help to provide first aid until the doctor arrives or wait until the morning to contact specialists. But you should not include funds that are used very rarely in a home first-aid kit.

The composition of the first-aid kit for use at home should include three main groups of medicines:

• means for the treatment of wounds and dressings;
• necessary medications;
• ancillary medical products.

The last group includes tweezers and clean scissors that can be used to cut off a bandage or band-aid. The necessary components include a thermometer, mercury, or electronic, a tonometer. If you have a small child at home, you can purchase an infrared thermometer.

Means For the Treatment of Wounds

Minor household injuries, abrasions, cuts, and small burns can be treated on their own without seeking help from a doctor. To do this, it is enough to make a home first aid kit properly. It necessarily includes several types of antiseptics and preparations for treating the skin. It is best to have hydrogen peroxide, iodine solution, and brilliant green at home. For washing the wound in adults and children, chlorhexidine can be included in the list. Any of these antiseptics will help get rid of pathogenic bacteria on the skin. They are also used to treat the oral mucosa for colds.

The necessary components of a home first aid kit include various types of fixing and dressing materials. What is the minimum set that all houses should have:

• a large sterile bandage;
• small bandage;
• cotton wool or sterile non-woven dressings;
• elastic bandage;
• several types of patches.

If you have a child at home, you can buy a children’s patch with funny pictures to cheer up after an abrasion. Special types of fixing bandages, a patch against corns and corns are purchased in the event of injuries in the right amount. It is not necessary to keep them always at home.

A must-have item on your home first aid kit list is lidocaine pain relief spray. It can be applied topically to bruises and sprains to relieve pain. Also, a burn spray is added to the list of preparations for treating wounds and dressings. It usually contains panthenol, which helps reduce pain and burning and speeds up skin recovery. But in the case when the desired drug was not included in the first-aid kit, it is forbidden to smear the burn with oil or fat.

Remedies

If there are no people with chronic diseases in the family, then a large first-aid kit for the home is not needed. The list of essential drugs should include only those that have a universal effect and can be used without a doctor’s recommendation.

A simple home first aid kit consists of the following groups of medicines:

• Painkillers are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications from Canadian pharmacy, the most popular drugs include paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin, and nimesulide. They help not only to anesthetize but also reduce the temperature.
• Antispasmodics — drugs that remove spasms of the smooth muscles of the intestines, blood vessels, and uterus, and also help eliminate pain.
• Remedies for diarrhea — consist of sorbents that help remove toxins and harmful bacteria from the body.
• Antiallergic — antihistamines are added to the contents of the first-aid kit, even if there have never been allergy symptoms. They will help reduce swelling of the nose with a cold and relieve itching after insect bites.
• Cold medicines — simple vasoconstrictor drops, and saline solutions are needed to reduce the common cold. For a sore throat, you can have on-hand lozenges for resorption or a simple spray.
• Calming — to reduce anxiety and unforeseen experiences, you need to have valerian-based tablets at home.

Additional Tools in the Home First Aid Kit

An extended list of medicines in the home first aid kit is needed if there are children, people with chronic diseases, or elderly family members in the house. For a newborn baby, herbs for bathing, baby douche in case of constipation, and glycerol suppositories are needed.

Parents need to have antipyretic, antihistamines in children’s dosage. For babies under 3 years old, you can store suppositories with paracetamol in the refrigerator against temperature, and buy allergy medicines in drops.

In chronic diseases, a home first-aid kit is collected individually. With a pathology of the digestive tract, heartburn remedies are stored at home, with chronic constipation — simple laxatives. People suffering from hypertension should have plenty of high blood pressure pills recommended by their doctor. In old age, the main emergency medicine for heart pain is nitroglycerin. It is better to buy other medicines after consulting a doctor, and not to buy in reserve.