Make your own First-aid kit

 

Home First-aid kits bought commercially often are expensive and have few practical items. The following is a guide on how to assemble your own home First-aid kit economically and with very useful items.

First get a casserole sized plastic or rubber storage container to place the items in.  You want it deep enough to have room for all your stuff and to place important items at the top within sight.

Bleeding is a common emergency. Here are some items to pick up at the Pharmacy.

  1. Have at least six 4”x4” sterile gauze pads. These can be used for direct pressure or cleaning out small wounds.
  2. Two 4” gauze rolls. This is used for wrapping and securing bandages. Imagine the stuff you would wrap a “Mummy” with. When purchasing from a pharmacy, get a named brand preferably wrapped in plastic. The ones wrapped in paper are of a very cheap quality and are difficult to work with as it usually falls apart.
  3. For very heavy bleeds you will need some kind of Pressure/Trauma bandage or Abdominal pad. Again there is varying degree of quality with these items. An alternative can be having at least Two large and thick Maxipads.
  4. Have at least Four Triangular bandages. These useful items are easy to use and are great for making slings and tying bandages in place.

 

Disinfectants.  Stay away for rubbing Alcohol and Peroxide. It burns and is not necessary. Hand sanitizers often contain Alcohol so beware. A small bar of soap with water is all you need to clean cuts and scrapes. Put a bar in a zip lock sandwich bag to keep you kit from getting soapy.

Tape. One two inch role on medical tape is all you need.

Scissors.  Any scissors (Office Scissors) will work well. Make sure they don’t have pointed ends. The little Pre-school scissors often found in commercial first-aid kits are not reliable in an emergency.

Zip lock sandwich bags are great for making ice-packs for all sorts of injuries that involve swelling.

Tweezers, a small Flashlight and disposable gloves are also useful items.