What should be in a home first-aid kit?
A home first-aid kit needs supplies for wounds, pain, fever, allergies and burns. The core: adhesive bandages in sizes, sterile gauze and tape, an elastic wrap, antiseptic solution, tweezers, scissors, disposable gloves, a digital thermometer, paracetamol and ibuprofen, an antihistamine, oral rehydration salts, and burn gel or cling film for burns.
Add your household's specifics: an epinephrine pen where prescribed, spare inhaler, children's doses if children live there.
Check it twice a year for expiry, teach everyone where it lives, and tape emergency numbers inside the lid. Assembled calm beats assembled bleeding; the kit exists for the day nobody wants.
See a doctor promptly if
- Any injury with heavy bleeding that does not stop with firm direct pressure: call emergency services and keep pressing
- Chemical splash to the eye. Irrigate immediately for at least 15 minutes and get medical assessment, do not wait to identify the chemical first
- Collapse in a hot environment with confusion or strange behavior. A medical emergency; start cooling while help is called
- Any electric shock, crush injury, or fall from height, even if the person feels fine afterwards
Try the symptom diary10 seconds a day, free, nothing to installSkin follows what you touched, ate and changed. A dated week shows the pattern a photograph cannot.
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
If you are buying a thermometer
A basic digital stick thermometer is accurate and costs a few dollars. Forehead scanners are fine for quick checks on children; ear thermometers need good technique to read true.
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