It's always a good idea to have medical supplies on hand so you don't have to rush to the pharmacy in the middle of the night. You should tailor your supplies to your individual needs. As you get older, health problems become more common, and you may need to stock supplies for diabetes or allergies. However, you should keep general supplies on hand as well. Here are some medical supplies you may want to keep in your medicine cabinet.
First Aid Supplies
You should treat cuts and burns quickly, so they don't get infected. For that reason, you need to keep bandages and antibiotic ointment on hand. You may want to stock a variety of bandages or gauze and tape. You can stock peroxide, alcohol, or iodine to clean your wounds. You might also want to keep some aloe plants growing in your garden or window sill, so you can cut off a leaf to treat a mild burn.
Other first aid supplies that come in handy are tweezers and scissors, as well as ice packs and heating pads for stiff muscles and arthritis. If you have trouble with your vision, you may also want to keep a magnifying glass in your medicine cabinet, so you can see splinters or read directions on pill bottles.
Health Devices
You can monitor your health at home with various devices. These shouldn't replace regular doctor visits. Instead, you can use them to track your health and watch for signs of trouble. A thermometer is something you definitely want on hand, so you don't have to run to the store for one when you get sick. You might also want to buy a blood pressure monitor, blood glucose monitor, and a pulse oximeter. These devices are fairly inexpensive and they will help you monitor for diabetes and cardiovascular problems. A pulse oximeter fits on your finger and gives you a reading of your heart rate and oxygen saturation level. A glucose monitor can help you watch your blood sugar and tweak your diet, so you can naturally keep your blood sugar in the normal range and avoid diabetes.
Medications
Medications have an expiration date, so you don't want to stock up on a lot of things you may not use. You might want to keep allergy medications, pain relievers, and antacids on hand if you tend to use them frequently. It might be a good idea to keep additional prescription medications stocked if possible. That way you won't run out if there is a weather emergency or some other reason you can't get your pills from the pharmacy on schedule. Eye drops or eye wash is also handy to have, so you can quickly rinse your eyes when they are irritated with dust or pollen.
The medical supplies you have available should prepare you to deal with most minor emergencies, including cuts, burns, scrapes, and bruises. They should also support your medical needs if you have a condition such as asthma or arthritis. You never know when you'll have an accident or get sick, and having what you need on hand means you'll get treatment as soon as you need it.
Share1 May 2015
When my daughter began having academic problems in school and acting out, I knew that something wasn’t right. Her teachers wanted me to put her on ADD medications, but I didn’t think that that was the right course for us. I had serious doubts that ADD was what was causing her problems. I took her to several different specialists before discovering that her issues in school were actually do to a visual processing problem. The doctor recommended vision therapy, not medication, to help correct the problem and get her back on track. The exercises are really starting to pay off, and she’s showing great improvement.
