Emergency Medical Kit

The regular depiction in TV serials of a doctor arriving home immediately when summoned on telephone to attend to an emergency, could not be farther from reality. Most doctors do not attend home calls, and the chances of getting one in the middle of the night when you are down with an attack of incessant vomiting or an allergy could be almost impossible.

It makes sense therefore, to keep some medicines at home or carry on travel. Here are some tips on how to make your own emergency medicine kit:

1. Keep medicines that you are familiar with, and preferrably, have taken before, so that it is not a first timer during an emergency and that too in a new place.
2. If you are not good with tongue twisting drug names, put them in labelled envelopes according to indications. For example, you could have paracetamol tablets in an evelope labelled “Fever, Body pains”, or loperamide in one labelled “Loose motions”
3. Keep them in your hand baggage, in a separate pouch or flap. I recall how a fellow passenger, who had a history of asthma, came down with a severe attack during a long flight from Delhi to Frankfurt. He had packed his bronchodilator puffs all right, but in the checked-in luggage! I had to administer an injection of deriphylline, which fortunately the emergency kit of the airline had, to him in mid-air.
4. Know your special needs: For example an asthmatic should ensure he travels with his bronchodilators, those with diabetes should carry not just their anti-diabetic drugs but also some sweets or sugars, in case their head spins due to a drop in blood sugar.
5. Consult your family doctor; he would know which medicines are safe and good for you.

The kit could contain medicines to deal with these common emergencies:

1. For allergy, hives, itching, running nose, watery eyes, brochospasm: Allegra/ Alspan/ Cetriz/Avil tabs
2. Loose motions (watery) : loperamide (Imodium)
3. Acidity/ heartburn: Digene or Gelusil tablets/ Ranitidine or Omeprazole
4. Nausea or vomiting : Domperidone or ondansetron (Emset MD)
5. Motion sickness : Avomine
6. Infections: tummy or urine infections, fever: Ciprofloxacin or ofloxacin/ cephalosporins like Cetil or Sporidex
7. Throat or chest infections: cephaloporins or amoxycillin or Septran
8. Fever, body aches, sprains, injury: Paracetamol/Ibuprofen
9. Crampy pain in abdomen or painful periods: Spasmindon, Cyclopam/ Meftal spas are some antispasmodics
10. Also carry drops for blocked nose (Otrivin), a few Bandaid strips, a local antiseptic cream (Betadine) and a few Oral Rehydration sachets (Electral) and laxatives (like Naturolax) especially if you are travelling to the west.
11. Make sure you have your family physician’s cell number at all times
12. If you have any medical problem such as diabetes or blood pressure, carry these medicines in sufficient numbers. Your family doctor will guide you regarding any special medicines that you should keep for your unique needs.

The kit is like the spare tyre that you keep in the car boot on long drives. And there can be a little doctor in each of us to pull us out of unexpected health troubles!

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 9 June, 2013.