Jace's Kit Loadout V: The Medkit

Perhaps the most critical item in anyone’s travel loadout, at least if you want to stay healthy enough to enjoy your travels, will be your first aid kit.

After 9 months travelling our first aid kit is a combination of stuff we have thankfully never needed (and hopefully never will) and stuff we frequently replenish. I call this the ‘medkit’ rather than a ‘first aid’ kit because when you are on the road your first aid kit doubles as the entire medicine cabinet in your bathroom, so you use it not only to apply first aid in emergency situations but also to treat lots of everyday ailments. As a result, you use it much more frequently and for a wider range of applications than the first aid kit you might have in your car or in your home.

As always when you are travelling, volume, weight and durability are important considerations. A fully stocked medkit is a bulky thing, and if you are as paranoid as we are and take lots of drugs with you, you need to take small quantities of lots of different things and replenish some of them frequently. In the table below I’ve listed the items we carry, the containers we carry them in, and what they are used for. All the items listed in the table fit into a pouch of approximately 2 litres in volume.

When we purchase items in blister packs we often transfer them into small plastic bottles (transparent ones are best) for better durability as blister packs burst open easily and pills get lost. If you are going to do things this way you must be very careful to properly label your bottles. A good way to label bottles is to cut off the name of the tablets from the cardboard packet with your scissors and pop it in the bottle. A bad way to label bottles is to write on them in permanent ink, only to discover later that the ink wasn’t as permanent as you thought it would be, and now you have a whole lot of pills and you can’t remember what they are for.

Clear plastic pills bottles like this Nalgene one are good. If you have more types of pills than bottles you can put two types in one bottle as I have done here, just be sure to write clear descriptions of which pill is which on the backs of the labels and, obviously, don't put two different pills that appear identical in the same bottle.

Another word of advice: try to avoid those metal tubes, like the ones Savlon cream comes in. They puncture easily and you end up with a mess when you need one least. Creams like sunscreen and insect repellent which are sometimes difficult to find in screwtop bottles need to be put into ziplock bags when not in use in case the fliptop lid comes off in your pack.

Below is a list of the current contents of our medkit. If you are reading this and you can think of anything else you think is important to have in a travel medkit be sure to leave us a post with your ideas.

Type	Container	Use
‘Bactroban’ (mupirocin) ointment	15g tube	Treatment of ‘golden staph’ skin infection
400mg ‘Noroxin’ Norfloxacin tablets	6 tablets in blister pack	Antibiotic for gastrointestinal or urinary tract infection
500mg ‘Keflex’ Cephalexin capsules	20 tablets in blister pack	Antibiotic for respiratory tract infections
100mg ‘Vibra-tabs’ Doxycycline tablets	Plastic bottle, 28 tablets	Malaria prevention
Tea Tree Oil	25ml glass bottle	Disinfectant, antiseptic, smells nice
250mg activated charcoal tablets	Plastic bottle, 60 tablets	Prevents flatulence
500mg paracetamol tablets	Plastic bottle, 30 tablets	Painkiller
200mg ibuprofen tablets	Plastic bottle, 30 tablets	Painkiller
500mg paracetamol ‘Lemsip’ sachets	A few sachets	Painkiller, soothes sore throat, tastes nice, comforting
2mg Imodium (Loperamide Hydrochloride)	Plastic bottle, up to 100 tablets (they are tiny)	Anti diarrheal
‘Caladryl Clear’ lotion	Plastic bottle, 200ml	Topical analgesic- to stop mozzie bites itching
‘Tineafax’ powder	Plastic bottle, 60g	Clears Tinea
‘Gastrolyte’ tablets	Plastic tube of 10 effervescent tablets	Glucose and electrolytes for rapid rehydration
‘Rennie’ Antacid tablets	Plastic bottle, 30 tablets	Indigestion or ‘heartburn’
‘Fess Frequent Flyer’ Nasal spray	200ml nasal spray bottle	Prevents nasal congestion
‘Gingisona L’ lidocaine solution	Glass bottle, 30ml	Local anaesthetic solution- for mouth ulcers
‘Claratyne’ Antihistamine tablets	Plastic bottle, 20 tablets	Hayfever relief
Blistex lip conditioner	A few plastic ‘lipstick’ applicator tubes	Prevents windburn on lips
Surgical gloves	2 pairs, stored in old film canisters	Barrier to infection when blood is present
‘Reclens’ saline solution	3 ampoules	Eye irrigation
‘Leukoplast’ sports tape	1 roll of tape	Strapping feet to prevent blisters before hiking
Thermal blanket	Folded in ziplock bag	Treatment for shock- keeps patient warm
Triangular bandage	Sterile packaging	Slinging, bandaging, splinting
Wound dressing	Sterile packaging	For dressing wounds!
Band aids/ Elastoplast squares and strips	About a dozen standard strips and a dozen larger squares	Strips for small cuts and nicks, larger squares for abrasions
Medium weight crepe bandage	Sterile packaging	Principally for holding wound pads in place
Heavy weight bandage	Rolled	Principally for compression of strains and sprains
Scissors	loose	For cutting
Tweezers	loose	For tweezing
Sunscreen	Plastic tube in ziplock bag	Prevents sunburn
Insect repellent	Plastic tube in ziplock bag	Repels insects!