It is very important to have a well-stocked first aid kit at home. It can come in handy in a variety of situations, such as treating wounds and cuts. What drugs and medical devices should you equip your home first aid kit with? We asked Rafał Janiszewski about this, the owner of the Advisory Office providing services in the field of he althcare organization for he althcare entities and patients' rights.
Anna Tłustochowicz: From our childhood, we all remember first aid kits in the offices of school hygienists. What should be in our home first aid kits?
Rafał Janiszewski:When thinking about home first aid kits, first of all, do not associate them with just one box or a box in which we keep all drugs and medical devices. We must remember thatthese preparations have differentrequirements when it comes to storage conditions, which can be read in the leaflets attached to these products. Some of them should be kept in the refrigerator, and the storage temperature of others should not exceed a few degrees Celsius. We all know what the summer has been like in Poland for some time now …
They're tropical!
That's it, and our apartments are usually not, like the apartments of our southern neighbors, equipped with air conditioners, so on hot days, medical devices that we store in our homes also heat up. You need to be alert to it, because in this situation drugs may not only lose their healing properties, i.e. to put it bluntly,they may not work, but also harm us.This is due to the fact that some of the substances contained in them, under the influence of physical factors, can change their properties and break down in the most normal way in the world.
And make us poison us?
Of course it is.
Let's move on to the equipment of the home first aid kit. We have already established that it means not one, but several places where we store useful medical devices. What should it be?
In order to answer this question, we should take into account various types of illnesses that happen to us in everyday life. First of all, they are often various types of injuries and cuts, for which we need dressings. And now:These should be bothplasters withdressing (there are ready-made sets of such plasters on the market that we can buy) andsterile gauze pads and bandages . It is worth havingelastic bandage in your home medicine cabinet, , which will be useful, for example, to immobilize a sprained ankle.
The important thing isthe right choice of these dressingsin terms of both their size (i.e. we should have different sizes because we also have smaller and larger wounds), and and their destiny. Today, there are many types of dressings available on the market.
What?
First of all, they aremade of various materials : there are those that are highly absorbent, such - I mean the aforementioned plasters with a dressing - which additionally contain various substances, e.g., a hydrocolloid coating to improve wound healing. Still other dressings perform a compressive function, which has the ability to stop bleeding.
When I listen to you now, I think I should buy them all right now!
Not necessarily. From a rational point of view, one should ratherchoose common dressings, i.e. those containing absorbent material or also preventing bleeding . Specialist, i.e. gel, hydrocolloid dressings, I would rather recommend to our readers who have difficulties with wound healing.I would also suggest that they consult their he alth care physician.I am now thinking, among others, of about diabetic patients whose wounds heal more difficult, so their home first aid kits should certainly contain specialist dressings. We also have burn dressings available on the market and it is worth having several such dressings in the first aid kit, because burns are quite common injuries at home. In general, the range of these products is very large today and they are highly effective, help and bring relief.
You mentioned bandages. It's a good idea to put a cooling compress on your sprained ankle, right?
Yes, and various types of compresses are also available. Some of them are stored in the freezer, but there are also those whose freezing effect is initiated simply by crushing them. In addition to the dressings in the home medicine cabinet, it is also worth havingmedications for various symptoms of illness , such as headache (here we are talking about painkillers) and medications that we use for minor infections, i.e. when we have a sore throat or a runny nose.
When we have a cold.
Yes. Anxieties,who fight colds, it is worth having in the first aid kit because their use in the first, initial stage of infection is the most effective.
What other medications do we need?
You definitely need to be prepared in case of poisoning, which may be manifested by vomiting or diarrhea. The first-line measures in this case certainly includemedical charcoal preparations- carbomedicinalis. It is activated carbon, the action of which is based on binding chemicals, those with which we poisoned, thus preventing our absorption of these substances into the body.
How to stop diarrhea?
A frequently used substance isnifuroxazide.I would like to strongly sensitize readers that if they have children, remember to have painkillers or antipyretics for children in this form and a dose that is adequate to their age: for the smallest they are in the form of suppositories and keep them in the refrigerator, and for older ones they will be syrups with a concentration appropriate to their age.
Remember that the home first aid kit isan extremely useful resource of dressings and medications for emergency treatment in case of illness , but if the use of these medications takes 1-2 days does not result in a cure, then we should definitely consult a doctor.
In the case of children, however, it must be remembered that all disease processes progress very quickly. Often dynamically! So great,even a very well-equipped home first aid kit will not replace a pediatric consultation ! In the case of children, it is impossible to delay, especially since the drugs that we have in the first aid kit are usually symptomatic drugs. We do not have diagnostic possibilities, so I emphasize: prolonging self-medication with medicines from the home medicine cabinet can be dangerous, especially when it comes to children.
And how often should the home first aid kit be inspected?
This is an important point! We use the first aid kit more often and sometimes less often,but you should always remember to treat the medications contained in it as emergency ones.If we use any medications in a chronic manner - constantly, systematically, every day - we should not keep them with those from the home medicine cabinet, but in a private place. This is important because thanks to this we have control over their expiry date.
Sure, but the medications in the medicine cabinet can also expire!
I was just getting to this: also those drugs that we do not use have an expiry date andmay expire. Please also note thatthe dressings also have an expiry date ! Let's take the ones with wound healing substances. It is these substances that become obsolete. And when we look at the fact that most of the dressings are sterile, it is natural that the packages remain sterile only for some time. Even an elastic bandage, which we will keep for too long …
Bandage expires?
Yes, because the fibers will lose their elasticity after a few years and will simply start to break down. Sothe home first aid kit should be systematically checked and the expiry dates of medical preparations should be checkedh. I would also like to draw your attention to a seemingly trivial matter that often escapes us. Now, if we take a blister from the package and take the medicine, it is good practice to put the blister card back into the package we took it from.
Why is it so important?
The expiry date of the drug is placed on both the blister and the packaging, but when the blister is used, this date often becomes blurred. By placing the blister back in the package, we can be sure that we will be able to check at any time whether the drug is still valid.
However, when answering the question of how often we should review our home first-aid kits, I will say:if today we decided to put on such a first-aid kit and supply it today, we should put it on, that we review it once a year.
Most of our readers surely have a first aid kit already!
And maybe after reading our conversation some of them will come to the conclusion that they should refill the first aid kit. I think thatshould be checked once every six months if something is missing , something has not been used up, something has expired. I would like to emphasize once again that the home first aid kit is certainly something that is indispensable in every home. Everyone should have a first aid kit, while the supply of medicines, preparations and dressings it should be equipped with depends on the number of household members and their age, because this directly translates into the probability of specific injuries. It is clear that if we have a small child who loves to ride a bicycle and systematically tears his skin on his knees, we need a solid supply of patches with a dressing in the right size.
I would like to emphasize, however, that it sounds strong, that medications and dressings from the first aid kit will only help us in the first action. Ad hoc! A home first aid kit is not a home first aid kita pharmacy, and we - diagnosticians and doctors, so that we can use it to heal ourselves for all diseases.
Rafał Janiszewski, owner of the Advisory Office providing services in the field of he althcare organization to he althcare entities
Speaker, organizer of many trainings and conferences on he alth protection and patient rights. In the years 1998-1999 an employee of the Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for the Implementation of the General He alth Insurance. Author of over 20 books on he althcare organization and he alth care financing standards. In 2005-2007, he was an expert of the Presidium of the Parliamentary He alth Committee, as an advisor on he alth services. Co-author of the general study as part of the Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement project for the European He alth Commission.
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