What to pack for medical emergencies when help is far away. I may make a commission from purchases made from the links in this blog post.
If your off-grid property or homestead is a decent distance away from a hospital or emergency services, it is imperative that you keep first aid kits on hand. We have multiple first aid kits on our property, one in every vehicle and the main kit by the front door inside the cabin. Depending on the location of the kit, we have different essentials in each one.
The drive from our property to the paved road is a 30 minute commute in itself and another 45 minutes to the nearest hospital. We’re lucky to live in an area with a lot of fire stations, but it’s important to keep some life-saving products on hand in your kit. Some accidents can go downhill really quickly if you don’t have the right equipment or are prone to panic. Keep reading to see what we stock in every one of our kits.
What can you find in every one of my first aid kits?
These are going to be the standard items that you’ll see in most commercially available first aid kits.
- Adhesive bandages of assorted sizes
- Sterile gauze
- First aid tape
- Ace wrap
- Tubular gauze for fingers and toes
- Disposable gloves
- Antibacterial ointment
- Hydrocortisone cream
- Saline wash
- Cotton pads and swabs
- Thermal blankets
- Scissors
But along with the standard stuff that I’ve listed above, every one of our kits contains a tourniquet and a chest wound kit. It might not be the same for you but at our property, it is very wild and very rugged. You can’t just walk through the brush here. It is THICK. That means that we had to clear a lot of trees and brush to make open space and sometimes there are small sticks that are left sticking up out of the ground. I don’t know about you, but it would be absolutely terrible to slip or trip and fall onto one of natural spikes. We try to cut them all the way down but sometimes we miss one.
In our main kit that is mounted on the wall inside of the front door, we have everything listed above but more variety in types of gauze, tapes, wraps, and also includes burn gel and a water bottle. This kit is in a central location and easy to access whether we are inside or outside. Since our kit is pretty full at this point, we have a medicine cabinet that we have stocked with (I’ve linked to amazon the generics to save you money!).
- Diphenhydramine (Benadryl)
- Epinephrine (Epipen)
- Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
- Ibuprofen (Motrin)
- Naproxen (Aleve)
- Anti-fungal cream
- Calcium carbonate (Tums)
- Guaifenecin (Mucinex)
- Pseudophedrine (Sudafed), the one that is sold behind the pharmacy counter, not on the shelf.
- Oxymometasone (Afrin), I wanted to note that this isn’t just used as a decongestant, but it also stops stubborn nosebleeds.
- Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine)
- Polyethylene glycol (Miralax)
And because we have a child, the children’s version of everything above if applicable.
I am grateful for my 10 years of experience as a pharmacy technician and so I can fall onto my knowledge on these medications, how to use them, and which of them should not be used together. And so I recommend for the layman, make an excel spreadsheet of these drugs that you can have printed out and stored with the medication.
I’d also like to recommend that if you take maintenance medication (a prescription you take every single day, for example: for high blood pressure, cholesterol, diuretic, birth control pills), you can absolutely keep a small stockpile. Your prescription drug coverage won’t cover it, but the pharmacy cannot hold your prescription hostage (unless it’s a controlled substance) and you are more than welcome to purchase any amount that you have available on the prescription out of pocket.
How to stockpile your prescription maintenance medication
You can ask your doctor to write you an additional prescription to keep on hand in case of emergency and you can pay for these out of pocket or with a discount card (see GoodRX.com). As long as it isn’t a controlled substance there will be no issues with this.
Another way to get an additional supply of your medication is to purchase some off of your current prescription. Here’s how it works. Your doctor writes you a prescription for your blood pressure medication, lisinopril for a 1 year supply. If you take 1 tablet a day, that’s 365 tablets available on that prescription. You can request the pharmacy to fill your normal refill (say that you usually get a 90 day supply), and then fill it for an additional 30 day supply to keep for emergencies. You’ll then have 245 tablets left on the prescription.
In the case of this drug, lisinopril, it’s a fairly cheap one and you can get it for less than $20. But if you use a more expensive medication like insulin pens, which cost hundreds of dollars per box, you can purchase insulin vials and syringes over the counter in most US states.
- Human insulin regular: Also known as Humulin R and Novolin R, this is a short-acting insulin.
- Human insulin NPH: Also known as Humulin N and Novolin N, this is a long-acting insulin.
- 70/30 mixtures: A mixture of human insulin regular and human insulin NPH.
Don’t feel weird to ask for these things, at the pharmacy people tend to buy these insulins over the counter for their diabetic pets pretty regularly. But if they ask, it isn’t a problem to tell them that you want to keep it on hand for emergencies. Another tip is that Walmart has teamed up with an insulin manufacturer and you can get a vial for as little as $25!
I really hope this guide helps you, if you have anything you’d like to add or contribute to please leave a comment below! Our first aid kit is always a work in progress and it’s good to check your first aid kit regularly for medications that may be expired. Expired medications is okay to use if it’s all you have but just remember that the expiration date for medications are based on the drug’s half life and efficacy of the medication over time. It just means that the medications won’t be as effective but it could still help.
If you’re prescribed antibiotics, please finish the entire course to prevent drug-resistant bacteria. Do not discontinue the medication prematurely so you can save some of the medication for later. You can talk to your doctor about writing you a prescription for an emergency-use supply (I’ve seen this happen). There are ways of getting your hands on antibiotics over the counter in the US but due to the prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria and improper use of antibiotics, I won’t be sharing that information here but feel free to do your own research!
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