Building the Best Home Medkit

What to Keep in your Home Medkit

Here are some tips and tricks and things that I find useful that I keep in my home med kit to help manage minor injuries, such as cut, scrapes and abrasions at home.

In emergency rooms, strategically located throughout central areas, we have big carts that are full of shelves of well organized equipment and supplies so that we can get to what we need quickly and efficiently to best take care of you. You can replicate that same idea at home with something like a tackle box that has dividers that are large enough to keep your most used items and also can be spread out so that you can view all of the supplies that you have to be able to best select the right tool for the job. This definitely beats digging through a bag full of old and expired medications and dirty bandages to try to find the right tool you need for a particular injury! The other great thing about the tackle box is it's portable! You can toss it in the back of your car and take it to wherever you might need it: a soccer game, hiking trip, a road trip, that way it's always there ready for you no matter where you go. And, you never have to worry about keeping an eye on your supply levels in two different places.

Here are a few things that I think should be part of every med kit and things I find useful for managing minor injuries outside of the physician's office or hospital:

Bandages

Just get the regular size ones, the large ones tend not to stick very well and come off or easily (I have another trick that helps those stay much better below!). They have the added bonus of being excellent painkillers for most kids under about nine years old!

Non-adherent Pads

These are special type of gauze that will not stick to a an abrasion, nothing is worse than putting a gauze pad on an abrasion, and then going to change the van only to have it rip off and cause a bunch of pain and another bleed!

Skin Glue

We use something called Dermabond in the emergency room in the operating rooms, that is awesome, but also very expensive. There are a number of over-the-counter versions, the functional like superglue, but are specifically made for the purpose of closing lacerations (cuts). This could be really handy as it creates a mostly water resistant/proof bandage over the area, helps reap approximate the skin while it heals and you can always place vantage over this after it's dried to give you extra protection.

Sports Tape

This can be used to fix larger bandages, such as the non-adhering pads above or other gauze over larger wounds, the tape is breathable, comes off easy while also being secure while it's on and is inexpensive. It's also great for using to protect hot spots when hiking for example or over blisters that are formed to keep them from popping.

Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline)

This is a great skin protectant and can facilitate healing