A first aid kit is a must for every home, so that you’re always prepared to handle accidents and minor injuries like cuts, bruises, or sprains. It also ensures that you can provide immediate treatment for minor illnesses like a cold, cough, or allergy.

While you can purchase a kit pre-filled with medical supplies, building your own lets you select specific items that suit your and your family’s needs. As you put together a home first aid kit, make sure to include the essential items listed below:

Over-the-Counter Medicines

Whether you have a headache, muscle strain, or stomach pain, there are over-the-counter medications you can rely on to manage your symptoms. These medicines can be easily purchased and don’t require a prescription. You can either get them from your local pharmacy or buy medicines online for your convenience. You also have the option to buy either branded or generic medicines.

Whatever you choose, remember to stock your first aid kit with these medications:

• Ibuprofen – It is used to treat pain in the form of headaches, menstrual cramps, dental pains, muscle aches, and the like. It can also reduce fever and relieve minor symptoms associated with the common cold or flu. As a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, ibuprofen blocks the body’s production of substances that cause inflammation. 
• Paracetamol – This is also used to treat various pains and reduce fever. Compared to ibuprofen, paracetamol doesn’t help in decreasing inflammation.  
• Loperamide – It is taken to treat sudden diarrhea. It works by slowing the movement of the gut, which decreases the frequency of bowel movements and makes the stool less watery.
• Antacids – They help relieve symptoms of heartburn, indigestion, or an upset stomach by neutralizing the acidity in the stomach.
• Laxatives – These are used to help treat constipation. They work by loosening stools and increasing bowel movement.
• Antihistamines – These are medications that help relieve symptoms of allergies like watery eyes, itchy eyes, sneezing, and runny nose. They are also used to treat symptoms of allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, and the common cold.
• Cold medications – These can be any medicines to help you relieve the symptoms of the common cold. Typically, you get nasal decongestants to help unclog stuffy nose or cough suppressants to control coughing. Also, include expectorants in your kit to loosen mucus in your lungs and make it watery enough so you can easily cough it up.
• Throat lozenges – They help ease symptoms of sore throat.

Prescription Medication

If you or anyone in your household is taking prescription medications, make sure to keep at least a week’s worth of them in your home first aid kit. Keeping a small stock of your maintenance medications can be very useful in case you run out and can’t leave the house, especially during typhoons or similar emergencies. 

Wound Care Supplies

Some of the most common injuries you might experience in your home are cuts, scrapes, and burns. To ensure you’re ready to treat these minor injuries, stock your first aid kit with gauze pads, dressing pads, bandage rolls, micropore tape, and adhesive bandages. Make sure they are of varying sizes to cover different-sized wounds. 

Also, remember to put wound cleaning supplies in the kit such as antiseptic cleaning solution, hydrogen peroxide, and antibiotic ointment. Additionally, keep a tube of hydrocortisone cream to ease any symptoms and discomfort caused by skin conditions like itching, swelling, insect bites, eczema, dermatitis, or skin allergies.

Thermometer

The normal body temperature ranges from 36.4 to 37.2 degrees Celsius. This can vary throughout the day, so this change isn’t something to be really concerned about. However, you need to watch out for any sudden elevation in body temperature as this may be an indication of an infection or illness. Keeping a thermometer in your home first aid kit allows you to easily check if you or other members of your household have a fever. This way, you can determine the next steps you need to take whether that may be taking over-the-counter medicines or seeking immediate treatment from a doctor.

Tweezers

Having a splinter or shard of glass stuck in your skin can be quite uncomfortable. It can also lead to an infection if you leave it for too long. If you have a pair of tweezers, you can quickly and safely remove stubborn splinters no matter how small they may be. Keeping tweezers in your first aid kit also means you can access them as soon as you need them instead of rummaging through the house to find them.

Hot and Cold Pack

While inside the house, you can accidentally slip, fall, or hit your head. These injuries can be painful but fortunately can be quickly remedied by a reusable hot or cold pack. Depending on what you need to ease the pain from the incident, you can warm or cool the pack. If you need something warm, you can submerge it into a pot of hot water until it has reached the desired temperature. In case you need an ice pack, put the pack in the freezer until it chills.

Whether you’re buying a first aid kit or building one for yourself and your family, make sure it has the must-have items mentioned above. These supplies can help you treat minor injuries and common illnesses. More importantly, having a stocked first aid kit in your home allows you to reduce the severity of any injury. 

Complete your first aid kit with health essentials online at Southstar Drug. Take advantage of our FREE delivery service if you purchase a total of Php 1,499 and up for Metro Manila, Rizal, and select areas in Pampanga, Cavite, and Batangas. For the remaining provinces, you may enjoy FREE delivery service for purchases worth Php 5,000 and up.

Disclaimer: This article features medical and health topics for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace or serve as medical or professional advice for self-diagnosis, self-treatment, self-medication, or the like for any health-related condition or medical emergency. Make sure to consult a health care or medical professional for proper medical care, diagnosis, or treatment related to your situation. 

Shopping online for health-related products can be challenging, so Southstar Drug shares some tips to help you for your next purchase.

The convenience of online shopping is undeniable. With the wide range of products available through various e-commerce sites, you can buy everything you need and want without leaving the comfort of your home.

What’s more, the kinds of products you can purchase online continue to grow. Before, the selections ranged from groceries and home essentials to electronics and fashion accessories. Now, you can also find and buy medical products online. Just one search of “buy medicine online Philippines” and you’ll be met with hundreds if not thousands of choices.

Of course, purchasing medications and health products from websites requires additional care. If you don’t exercise caution, you might end up with something that can do you more harm than good. Instead of getting better, you might end up endangering your health.

To make sure that you’re getting quality medicines and health products online, keep in mind these 5 tips:

Consult Your Doctor

Whenever you need (or feel like you need) to take medications, it’s best to consult your doctor first and get a proper diagnosis. You may discover that you don’t really have to take medicines for your condition, but rather just let nature take its course. If it turns out that you do need to medicate, then your doctor can provide treatment recommendations that will produce the best results.

Aside from writing you a prescription if needed, your doctor can also tell you what side effects you need to watch out for when taking your medicines. If you’re taking supplements, your doctor can also tell you whether it’s advisable to continue with it or better to stop in the meantime.

With the help of your doctor, you’ll have more information to work with so you can make better decisions when it comes to your health. In addition, you can also save money! The professional fee you pay is definitely worth it when you consider the risks you’ll be able to avoid.

Buy from Reputable Establishments

If you’ve established with your doctor that you need to purchase medicines, the next step you have to take is to look for trustworthy establishments. Fortunately, top drugstores in the country like Southstar Drug already have online counterparts. Thus, you can rest assured that you can purchase quality medicines, health equipment, and similar products.

Don’t take your chances with unfamiliar sellers with unproven reputations. You may end up getting untested products, expired goods, or medicines with dangerous ingredients. For machines like blood pressure monitors, you might not get accurate readings or the equipment might break after just a few uses.

If these situations happen, you might encounter difficulties in getting proper compensation and issue resolution if you dealt with shady establishments.

Look for Well-Known Brands

In addition to buying only from established online drugstores, it’s also important to look for quality brands or those that you already know work for you. For over-the-counter medicines, it’s easy to determine the good ones as they are usually the most popular as well. However, this is not to say that generic medicines are not good or effective. The most important thing is that they work and that they’re safe.

For prescription medications, consult your doctor first before switching brands. In some cases, you might not have other options because there’s only one manufacturer that makes the specific formulation that you need. Don’t immediately buy an alternative online; get the opinion of a qualified health professional before anything else!

Pay Attention to Over-Promising Keywords

In order to sell their products, pharmaceutical manufacturers advertise the benefits of their medicines. They may say that a painkiller can be taken even if you haven’t eaten yet, without causing an upset stomach. This is pretty normal; the problems come when there are promises or claims that are too good to be true.

Pay close attention to keywords like “miracle cure” or other exaggerated declarations of benefits. Even “risk-free” is something to watch out for, as all medications have some form of side effects (even if that side effect is small or negligible). In addition, don’t take medicines just because they’re recommended to you by someone who found them effective. You may not experience the same effects or end up with a worse condition. When in doubt, consult your doctor.

Check the Website’s Security

Once you’ve finally decided to push through with your online purchase of health products, you should verify that the website you chose to buy from is secure. This isn’t a big issue when it comes to established sellers, but it still doesn’t hurt to check the security measures being implemented.

First, check the security protocol of the website. It should have “https” instead of just “http” on the address bar. A padlock icon will also indicate that the website is protected. About payment methods, make sure that you aren’t being asked to send information through email. Rather, they should capture your details on-site where it’s encrypted by their security protocol.

All in all, buying health products online is just like your usual online shopping experience. The main difference is that you should work closely with health professionals so you know you’re in good hands.

You can now conveniently purchase your medicines online at Southstar Drug. Take advantage of our FREE delivery service if you purchase a total of Php 1,499 and up for Metro Manila, Rizal, and select areas in Pampanga, Cavite, and Batangas. For the remaining provinces, you may enjoy FREE delivery service for purchases worth Php 5,000 and up.