First Aid Kit Question

[Old Hiker]

Claritin for the pollen season. I'm a mouth-breather at best, even at two a day - double the recommended dose.

Band-aids, neosporin, a couple or three every day type panty liners (better than gauze in my opinion, plus the sticky side helps keep in place), moleskin.

Tylenol and vitamin I since you can switch off every 2-3 hours for bad pain/swelling.

[Wise Old Owl]

The med kit that you make yourself, with what you need, and leave the stuff you don't use at home.


The owl has spoken.

[Starchild]

To add to the above list of carrying items, there are some items that are often easily obtainable on the AT such as the Plantain, or 'white man's footprints', used for wounds and to treat stings and bites, even snake bites, etc, and can be used to treat diarrhea if made into a tea.

[ktest]

a laminated card with my blood type, drug allergies, emergency contact info and insurance info.

Excellent idea. I usually carry my ID in the outermost pocket of my pack, but this is a great safety addition.

My Altoids tin first aid kit is dual use -- for me and the pup. As of right now, it contains:
Mini bic (sterilization)
Cornstarch (ripped nails / dew claws)
7ft vet wrap
Small square moleskin
Benadryl
.125 oz alcohol in spray bottle
Bandaids
4x4 gauze
Cough drops
Mustard packet (burns)
Salonpas (aches)

Need to add:
Needle and thread
Painkiller

[Just Bill]

http://www.amazon.com/BSN-Medical-76.../dp/B000FMMTKM
Wrapped around a mini-bic, and a roll of 2" gauze in my toilet paper bag. A mini ziplock with some odd pills.
Plus that entire backpack thingie and all its parts and pieces.

You don't need much- but read this guy's book- and take his word for it.

Do I bring all of the items which I have listed in the Wilderness Medical Kit Modules in Appendix A? Yes! And No! It depends.
If hiking the Appalachian Trail I would carry a few pieces of Spenco 2nd Skin and tape, ibuprofen, Imodium, and possibly a decongestant. The rest of my load would be food and the other direct necessities of life, certainly not first aid items.
William W. Forgey, M.D., "Wilderness Medicine, 4th Edition"

[TrippLite]

Most may not consider eye drops a necessity but I pack a bottle of Visine in my med kit

[Just Bill]

Most may not consider eye drops a necessity but I pack a bottle of Visine in my med kit

Highly recommended by many folks out west. Humid enough in midwest and east unless you got a problem normally.

Eyedrops and chapstick- two things that seem to be required because you used them in the first place. (Though both are fantastic in the winter)

[Odd Man Out]

I have a quart zip lock back I call my BUMMER bag (that stands for Back Up, Maintenance, Medicine, Emergency, Repair). It has all those little things you feel you should have, but don't necessarily need to get to every day, and if it's a bummer if you need to get something from it. There's no separate first aid kit since a lot of items are multi-use and fill more than one of these roles. In that bag I have a plastic tick removal tool, Tenacious Tape, fingernail clippers, needle/thread, Leukotape, a couple of bunion pads (I have a bony heel), Loperamide, Aleve, antibiotic ointment, a baggie of homemade rehydration therapy mix, Band Aids, Valseline, Pepsid (I'm prone to acid reflux), and a small SAK with knif and scissors. Baby aspirin are in my toilet kit as I take one every day. I only have a small amount of any given item.

[Bigfoot86]

Roll of gauze and some medical tape and some vitamin i

[10-K]

On the AT? A couple of big bandaids, a single edge razor blade and a few ibuprofen. You can be in a town within 24 hours almost anywhere.

I have some McNeil's Tenacious tape in my ditty bag and I've used it to cover a bandaid that won't stay stuck....

[swisscross]

Duct tape on poles.

3 medium bandaids
3 alcohol swab packets
1 large bandaid
V I
3 Imodium
3 Benadryl (bees)
silk tape 1/2 roll
1 single use super glue
mini swiss knife w/ tweezer, scissors
mini body glide
2 batteries for headlamp
patch for sleeping pad

small snack ziplock inside
tooth brush and paste

[Rolex]

I carry a yellow pre made kit but have been watching it to see if it can be slimmed down. I do a LOT of remote hiking so I keep it for my all alone just in case items.

Though I haven't got rid of the excess yet this is some thoughts on its being used for the last year.

I upped the vitamin I to 20 tablets 800 mgs which is largest dosage I could find. stored with the tweezers in a little plastic test tube type bottle with cork lid.
Iodine tablets as a backup for water purification. (Wondering if I could get rid of the glass bottle though, Anyone know?)
Duct tape flat folded (about 1 yard) for bandage,moleskin, repairs.
needle and fishing line. (more for repairs.) A doctor told me to lay off stitching a wound and tape it shut and put a tight wad/ball of something over that to stop the bleeding is the best way. That keeps a doctor from having to undo your stitching and all the risks.
Tweezers but my little multi tool has needle nose pliars I use a lot. ticks, and cactus stickers mostly so far.
Chapstick oh god yes! the balm in the little round can (Burts Bees?)works better than the stick for me which melted in hot weather.
Not used but carryed is the immodium. Per an earlier poster, I'm going to add something for acid reflux for them spam and ramen dinners immediately.
Antiseptic to smear over a wound. (I think neosporin generic version)
I'd like to add some antibiotics to eat but haven't looked into that yet much.
I carry 10-12 multi vitamins one a day type stuff enough for the trip hopefully.
the patch kit that came with my neoair.
I want to add some superglue but keep using it up on stuff around the house.
I think some Benadryl is in there mostly for itch relief from poison oak of mosquitos. Oh yeah, I carry the little bottle of pump bottle deep woods OFF for mosquitos and green flies. Also the benadryl is to trick myself into the chiggers are not itching so much when I've bushwhacked through them.

For me, it's been cuts and abrasions as the most injuries. Sore body aches or headaches preventing sleeping first few nights.
Rolex

[Connie]

I have used the smallest butterfly bandages, the ER had to use 18 stitches.

I had only compliments from the MD.

I also like Xeroform finger-size bandages to help other campers who get burned fingers. I also carry a hand-size and a forearm or lower leg size. Not to be folded, I find the inside pockets are a good place for the larger Xeroform. But I do rescue.

The finger-size Xeroform are more than adequate for most mishaps.

However, the larger sizes are great for abrasions, like road-rash experienced by bicyclists.

I like to purchase a small Adventure Medical Kit for the packaging, as well as, the contents.

I add Xeroform finger-size bandages, the smallest butterfly bandages, some individual packets of Excedrin, Tylenol, Aspirin, and an antihistamine. I also like to add nonstick gauze and latex-free tape for scrapes. I also carry a small container 2% USP hydrogen peroxide.

[rickb]

I would type up and laminate a 2" x 3.5" card outlining my plan of action if I founded an embedded tick on me under various scenarios-- i.e. engorged/not engorged, number of days assumed to have been attached before discovery, appearance of tick and the state/region where bitten.

Because some combinations of the above would lead me to take a short courses of a specific antibiotic as a profylaxis, I would make certain I had some of that antibiotic with me.

Other than that, I would take moleskin, ibuprofen, duct tape, and my insurance and credit cards.

But make no mistake about it, I would not be figuring out what to do regarding embedded tick on the trail. To my understanding time matters.

[Another Kevin]

Here's what I packed for a two-week hike in the middle of the Adirondacks, after consulting my physician. This trip was about as remote as Eastern hikes get: there was one place that you could have drawn a circle around me 18 miles in radius and not intersected a drivable road. I planned for at least a two-day hike out from potential trouble. I was in New York's nearest counterpart to the Hundred Mile Wilderness: a 135-mile trail with only four road crossings, some of them quite low-trafficked. There was one 40+-mile section with no feasible bailouts other than the trail.

Mechanical:

A couple of Band-Aids, and a couple of large gauze pads. Maybe a hydrocolloid bandage or two.
Duct tape
Nitrile gloves
CPR mask
Soap and water!

Trauma that this stuff can't handle is probably too severe to treat on the trail. Even the CPR mask is a dodgy idea, except possibly for drownings. A patient that needs CPR in the backcountry is likely not to be evacuated to hospital soon enough actually to recover well, except that if you can get an airway going on a drowning victim, they often recover by themselves.

Medical:

DEET.
Lip balm.
Triple antibiotic ointment.
Aromatic spirits of ammonia/mink oil for insect bites. (Afterbite or a generic equivalent)
Diphenhydramine, 20 25 mg tablets: in addition to helping with allergic reactions, it's a sleep aid, and an anti-motion-sickness drug (and a not-so-great antinauseal in general). I titrate dosage to the symptoms, not to exceed 50 mg every 4 hours.
Famotidine. 20 mg tablets. I take this regularly anyway for a long-standing stomach issue. Famotidine also potentiates Benadryl for anaphylactoid reactions - dosage for that is 20 mg famotidine twice a day together with the max dosage of Benadryl.
Ibuprofen. 200 mg tablets, so that I can titrate dosage. I do much better with smaller, more frequent doses (600 mg four times a day, or 400 mg every four hours) than 800 mg tid, which really does a number on my stomach.
Acetaminophen 300 mg/hydrocodone 7.5 mg - 8-12 tablets. 1 tab every 4-6 hours for severe pain.
Bismuth subsalicylate 262 mg - 16 tablets. First-line for GI symptoms. 2 tablets every 30-60 minutes (not to exceed 8 doses per day). Four tablets as a loading dose is appropriate.
Loperamide, 2 mg - 4-8 tablets. For diarrhea. 2 tablets initially, 1 tab after each loose stool subsequently up to 4 tablets/day. I don't like taking this, because it can cause your body to retain the offending microbes, but sometimes I might need to ride a bus.
Ciprofloxacin, 12 250 mg tablets. Two tabs twice a day for dysentery. Easier to carry a three-day course of treatment than to worry about getting the prescription promptly in some little town. It may have some effect in cellulitis (depending on the causative organism) and I'll take it for that since I don't carry a cephalosporin. It's also not first-line therapy in a non-wilderness setting, but I'll use it for suspected pneumonia or severe bronchitis.
Epinephrine, 300 µg, two-dose autoinjector. For anaphylaxis. Use according to the directions on the device, but see also this article.

Medications I don't carry but others on this site have recommended:
Doxycycline. The side effects of the tetracycline family are nasty enough that I'll start it only if Lyme, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, spotted fever, or something similar is confirmed, or at least suspected (and the incubation periods are long). I know that there are vocal members of this site who disagree with me on this. Make your own decision, in consultation with your own doctor.
Metronidazole. Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and Entamoeba histolytica all have a long enough incubation period that I'll be back in town before I start having symptoms, and a couple of days of symptomatic treatment while waiting to start definitive treatment won't kill me.
Any cephalosporin. Community-acquired cellulitis is likely not to progress to threatening life or limb in the time it takes me to hike out, even on an injured limb.

Oral rehydration is also worth considering, but it's heavy. Possible multi-use alternatives: Powdered sport drink (the kind WITH sugar!) diluted to half strength with a quarter-teaspoon of added salt per litre. Thin rice porridge - I usually arrange for my last hot meal on the trail to involve rice, so that I'll have rice on hand. Boil the hell out of it in a lot of water, and add a half teaspoon of salt to a litre of the rice water. Thin banana gruel. Sometimes I'll plan banana pudding as my last dessert on the trail so that I'll have dehydrated banana on hand. The same deal - boil the hell out of it in a lot of water, add salt. Even apples have enough potassium that dehydrated applesauce (or applesauce cooked on the trail from dried apples), diluted and with salt added, will work in a pinch.

As Just Bill points out, the whole contents of my pack, and all the stuff on my person, are first aid supplies. The tiny pliers and scissors on my Leatherman Squirt do for various jobs, including tick removal, debridement, and making butterfly closures from tape. I have a sewing needle in my repair kit. Poles, pack stays, bearbag rope, bandana, and clothing are all possible splint and emergency bandage materials. Cutting up a blue foam pad to make a stabilizing appliance is a possibility.

Also:

Personal locator beacon. So that God forbid there's an emergency that I can't handle, at least SAR doesn't have to spend a lot of time searching for my party.

I've used all the drugs that I carry at least once to treat somebody. It's often been someone other than myself, and I try to plan the kit accordingly. We hikers have to look out for each other.

[Connie]

I forgot to mention the O'Tom tick removal tool. It has large and small sizes.

It takes up very little space in the 1st aid kit.