What to put in a first aid kit?

Might be worth thinking about doing some first aid training so you know what you are doing therefore know what you need?

It might be tempting to fill the first aid kit with everything under the sun, but be very very wary from a drugs point of view what you take into some of those countries.

Even some common decongestants are on the banned list in many places.

For travelling abroad you basically need Imodium, electrolytes, antihistamines, paracetamol, and water sterilising tablets. Tegaderm dressings are incredible on burns and grazes.

For what it’s worth, India especially will let you buy anything over the counter provided it’s not a narcotic.

Edit: also, most places do actually have reasonable healthcare. It’s just priced way out of reach of locals.

For travelling further afield, carry sterilised needles too. (They will probably need to go in hold luggage).

For UK days out on bike or on foot I always have a very small and basic kit with me. Key is it is so small and light I always take it, even on short rides. That is important. No good having a comprehensive kit is you don't take it as its a bit bulky/heavy. In 10 years of pretty extreme MTBing I have only needed recourse on a few occasions so base my contents on that. 

1. A triangular bandage. Great for broken collar bones but can be used for loads of other stuff. 

2. A Big sterile adhesive dressing. Great for severe pedal strikes to the shins!

3. Pain killers

And a mobile phone to call for help.

My kit has a few sticky plasters, some tape and absorbent dressing and a few other bits and bobs that I have never used. All in a tiny waterproof pouch.

IAAAFAider

The only thing I've ever really used out of my kit are a couple of them foil thermal blankets. 

If you are dabbling with waterports then a small pair of forceps is invaluable for removing fishing hooks from flesh or clothes. There is often fishing tackle snagged in branches, the hooks can be tiny and very hard to grip with cold wet hands

I also carry one of those Swiss cards, very useful in the fa kit.

10p coin ?.

A very small but highly trained medic

The things I use the most are foil blankets, usually for a cyclist who is already being attended to by friends but with no way of trying to keep the casualty warm.

My other suggestion is not to take anything you don't know how to use - get yourself on a course. My employer is more than happy to keep my first aid at work up to date for me, I'm more than happy to let them

1) A large dose of common sense.

2) A detailed read of the small print of your holiday insurance.

My other suggestion is not to take anything you don’t know how to use – get yourself on a course.

This!

Can't comment on the second but first... Here is a used-to-be-qualified-first-aider-but-now-just-some-guy approach for the UK. This is what I do, but if anyone wants to correct me or improve me that's excellent too, I'd rather be wrong now.

-1) Sorry, I started at 1. The number of the bike rangers/bike park emergency number if you're at a trail centre or similar, saved in everyone's phone. Weighs nothing, easy to overlook.

0) ASPIRIN. If you carry nothing else carry asprin, for heart attack. Do the reading but 999 will tell you if/when to use it, assuming you can get 999
1) nothing you can't use, it'll just get in the way. Obviously training is ideal and lets you use more stuff well. Honestly even with decent training I still felt like a scared idiot any time I had to do anything, I'd hate to try and deal with a real emergency with none, even for "common sense" stuff. But failing that have a practice.

2) emergency shelter, people rule this out but mine is barely bigger than a shitty foil blanket and they are miles better. Even if you're a total idiot you can't get it wrong with an emergency shelter, exposure and cold makes any immobilising injury dangerous and if nothing else it can be a big orange flag.

3) comfort stuff, because you're hoping to never use emergency stuff but paracetemol, imodium and anti-indigestion stuff is going to be useful sooner or later. Electric tape is super useful for a million things, and it's small (you don't need a roll, you can prewrap it round something else). Blister plasters! The big fat compeed ones are amazing, you can use them for wounds either as a patch or a mega-butterfly, you can use them for chafes and scrapes if your kneepads rub or if you have a small off that makes riding uncomfortable, you can even use them to reseal burst camelbaks and I've seen one used to fix a puncture. And also blisters. Elastoplasts etc are a waste of time imo but compeeds are awesome. By the end of any alps trip I'm about 4% made of compeeds. All this stuff is barely first aid, it's just the extension of your tools and your snacks, you might want to keep some of it seperate.

4) getting slightly serious, something like a haemostatic bandage or similar trauma bandage is imo a Good Idea. I won't make a recommendation here, I'm not at all qualified to but I've had a couple of different ones and I've ended up with an Emergency Bandage / Israeli Bandage in all my packs- reason being they're incredibly simple to use (sacrificed one to try it out at home and even one-handed it's pretty easy, the hardest part'll be getting it out of your pack if you're the casualty. I ride alone quite a lot so that's a big deal but it'll also translate into easier to apply to someone else and easy = better when things are messy) And they also seem really durably and well packed, while the steroplast trauma dressings I stole from work felt very beaten up after a year being squashed in a bike bag. Quite a lot of first aid stuff is definitely supposed to live in a first aid box.

And 5), absolutely everything in a durable waterproof bag or two, because as above, stuff gets hammered in the bottom of a camelbak and if you need it in 3 years time you don't want it to all be manky or damaged. Something you can easily get into, though.

Slings and wrappy bandages and such? I don't, partly cos I forgot how to tie a sling 2 seconds after my last first aid training, and partly because it's just not really something I'm very worried about. Got an injury that absolutely needs a sling? Either I'm waiting for mountain rescue/ambulance, or we'll improvise something out of an inner tube or something like. Good counterargument is that even if you disregard slings, the triangular bandage might still be useful though. But I'd rather make the space for other things.

There is a not bad argument for a spare phone. Especially if you use strava etc so your battery might be caned. I don't carry one but I can see the sense, I've swithered on this.

Any thoughts on resus masks folks? I have one, again cos I stole it from work but I'm not sure if it's really earning its place? It feels slightly luxury.

Training is the key and don't take pills abroad. You'd be surprised how many times I've used a foil blanket. Someone actually showed me a great way to put a plaster on just the other day every day is a school day. My basic car/van one is just a standard one with extra bandages and aspirin and proper tweezers

Oh aye in my car is another pack with all teh first aid markings covered up and POST RIDE HUMAN REPAIR KIT written on it. Cos I don't want anyone to ever try and use it in an emergency but it's got tons of good stuff in it. All the things that I don't carry on the hill but might want in the car park, from alcohol wipes to bog roll by way of an emergency mars bar. Anything I think might be useful but don't want to carry gets chucked in here and it gets way more use 😉

I'm currently carrying:
1) a dressing with bandage in one sealed packet, foil blanket, disinfectant, tick puller and stuff for blisters if hiking. I never bothered with a triangular bandage because in an emergancy a t-shirt will do.
2) loads of stuff that's been in the pouch for years and probably degraded beyond use.
First aid/cpr course done every 2-3 years since I was in scouts.
Are sterilised needles still a thing?

Edit. Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Northwind, and the reality check, qwerty.

Are sterilised needles still a thing?

want to try being given drugs intravenously in a less developed country using their own needles?

1. A triangular bandage. Great for broken collar bones but can be used for loads of other stuff.<br /><br />

Probably more useful for other things. A couple of months ago I discovered that after hitting the deck hard coming down off the Ridgeway on damp chalk about 11-12 years ago I broke my collarbone. A month or so after my doctor sighed, told me I’d done something but I was getting older, so what d’you expect… 🤷🏼 

Still, the pain for the following ten months was bearable.

My small pocket first aid kit usually has a roll of Micropore tape, antihistamine tablets, a small tube of superglue and antiseptic wipes, and some folded bandages. Oh, and some Zapain/CoCodamol

After slicing my thumb right down the side of the nail, and discovering I hadn’t put a first aid kit in the car before setting off on a camping holiday, torn strips of bog roll glued in place with superglue was my bodged alternative. <br />When it finally fell off a couple of weeks later, there wasn’t even a visible scar. Whatever works…

For the local activity Don't you just buy the relevant one from St John's Ambulance or lifesystems and drop in the bottom of your ride pack?

https://www.lifesystems.co.uk/collections/outdoor-kits?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8KS8vu3EgwMVY4VoCR1gSgwmEAAYASAAEgIxvvD_BwE

I think others on here have the relevant experience of 1st aid requirements for groups, hopefully they'll chime in

Tick twister and a first field dressing / ambulance dressing / Israeli dressing.

Tick twister weighs nothing and bleeding out is possibly the biggest time sensitive worry.

Ooh yeah tick twister! Good shout!

For the local activity Don’t you just buy the relevant one from St John’s Ambulance or lifesystems and drop in the bottom of your ride pack?

Lots of people do - but they’d be far better following Northwind’s advice.  Because 65% of the bulk and weight in those kits is pretty useless for genuine emergency first aid, and they won’t have a bunch of actually useful stuff for trivial things (like compeed plasters).   <br /><br />I would add to Northwinds list some antihistamine (probably hydrocortisone cream and some piriton tablets) because something like crash in some nettles can ruin a day especially with kids, and clegs are evil.  And I like to carry dihydrocodiene because for something like a broken thumb it will make a walk out more bearable.  But you probably want to understand how and when to use it and you won’t get that on a typical first aid course.

Yeah I'd like to carry some hydrocortisone in the comfort stuff but it's not an ideal sort of form factor, never found a product that's quite right.

(I kind of deliberately didn't mention painkillers because I have some prescription strength cocodamol and some tramadol I have left over from old prescriptions in there, which is not totally cool, but might help if I ever have to float off a mountain)

Polo mint.

I think most of what i planned to say has been covered above -

I think the Life Venture (or similar) ready made kits are a good place to start, and you can always add to them. Ultimately injuries fall into 2 categories - those that will need hospital/professional intervention, and those (cuts and scrapes) which don't.

For the former your priority is to stabilise things, stop them  getting worse (bleeding/shock/hyperthermia) and prepare for a handover to the professionals when they arrive. worrying about taking huge sterile dressings is a bit pointless as you can use clothing/belts/scarves to control bleeding/cover a wound - bearing in mind the first thing the pro's will do is clean the wound out anyway.

regarding smaller injuries - your priority is to clean them up, and get into a situation where you can either carry on with your day or get safely home. Again - you can give a graze/small cut a good wash out when you get home.

I've been first aid trained for years and have used it in remote locations a few times - instances which spring to mind were a severe hip injury after a fall from height in the Australian bush - we carried the guy out on a stretcher made from branches and towropes then kept him comfy until the helicopter arrived, and a cut/degloving injury to a hand whist in the Moroccan desert - 6 hours from hospital. With this one it was all about controlling bleeding until we got to hospital - where the doctor gave it a good scrub out before stitching it up.

First aid (as in - initial response) is 90% knowledge and 10% equipment.

For walking I have a minimal amount of kit to treat emergencies. Bandages, dressings, foil blanket and so on. 

More far fling destinations maybe a bit more of that but not much. Mainly they are guided groups so I'm covered that way. What I do add is more of the "comfort" stuff. Things to treat bites, minor cuts and scrapes, chaffing, blisters etc. Lots of ibuprofen/paracetamol. Because you can't pop to the shops and headaches etc. can be a problem first few days at altitude and I've picked up colds on long haul flights before. Immodium, because, India. Antihistamines.

This is a sample of stuff I'd have on my house that might be hard to get mid way into a trip in the mountains. I'd not die without it but it makes things easier to deal with. 

I've only twice ever take prescription painkillers and and antibiotics but that was extreme. Unguided trip, very much in the wilderness for 6 weeks. Maybe 48h to a helicopter evacuation. Right faff and it was Canada. Would be scared to do that in some countries due to laws and customs. We also carried flares and a sat phone/VHF radio. 

Steri-Strips.
Orange Survival Bag.
Leatherman.
Morphine.