Brief overview
- Description: Container with medicines, bandages and medical instruments for minor everyday ailments (e.g. colds, headaches), minor injuries (e.g. scrapes, burns) and household emergencies.
- Contents: medicines (e.g. painkillers and antipyretics, wound and burn ointment, anti-diarrheal agent), bandages, medical instruments (e.g. bandage scissors, tweezers, clinical thermometer), other aids (e.g. cooling compress).
- Tips: regularly check for completeness and check expiration date of medications and dressings, note opening date on medication packages, do not use expired items, but dispose of them properly
What is a medicine cabinet?
On the one hand, the medicine cabinet and its contents serve to alleviate minor everyday complaints (e.g. headaches, gastrointestinal problems) and to treat minor injuries (e.g. abrasions). On the other hand, they help to provide first aid in an emergency (such as poisoning or electrocution). The correct storage and equipment of your own medicine cabinet is important for this!
What belongs in a medicine cabinet?
A well-stocked medicine cabinet is particularly important to ensure that you are prepared quickly and efficiently when you need it. The following applies: What belongs in a medicine cabinet also depends on the individual circumstances and needs. A family with small children may need a different medicine cabinet than a sporty single person.
Basically, the following medications and aids belong in every well-stocked medicine cabinet:
Medications
- Ointment for burns, wounds and healing (e.g. ointment with dexpanthenol or zinc oxide)
- Eye drops against dry eyes (e.g. with hyaluronic acid)
- Medicines for insect bites, sunburn, skin irritation or itching (e.g. ointments, creams, gels with urea or hydrocortisone)
- Medicines against diseases of the oral mucosa (e.g. chlorhexidine, lidocaine)
- Painkillers and antipyretics (e.g. paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid, ibuprofen)
- Anticonvulsant suppositories (e.g. with butylscopolamine, simeticon)
- Medicines for digestive complaints such as heartburn (e.g., lozenges or chewable pastilles with aluminum hydroxide, calcium carbonate, or magnesium oxide), flatulence (e.g., chewable tablets with simeticon or dimethicone), diarrhea (e.g., electrolyte mixtures, tablets, or capsules with loperamide), and constipation (e.g., syrup with lactulose).
- Medicines for bruises, strains, and sprains (e.g., tablets, gel, ice spray, or ointment containing diclofenac or ibuprofen)
- medications for allergies in the family (e.g. anti-allergic eye drops, nasal sprays or tablets containing cetirizine or loratadine)
- individually important medications if someone in the family has a specific (chronic) disease (e.g., antihypertensive medications, thyroid medications, diabetes medications)
Medical instruments
- Clinical Thermometer
- Bandage scissors
- Tweezers (e.g. to remove foreign bodies such as glass splinters from wounds)
- Safety pins (e.g. to fix dressings)
- Tick forceps/tick card
- Disposable gloves (e.g. to avoid introducing germs when treating wounds or to protect against body fluids such as blood when treating injured persons)
Dressing material
- Sterile compresses (e.g. for minor and major wounds and abrasions)
- Triangular cloth (e.g. as an arm sling or to cushion open fractures and wounds)
- Plaster strips in various sizes (e.g. to cover minor injuries such as cuts, stitches or burn blisters)
- Adhesive plasters/quick-acting wound dressing and plaster rolls (e.g. to fix dressings)
- Burn dressing pack
- Blister plasters
Other
- Cold compress/cool pack (store in freezer/ice box)
- Hot water bottle
- Rescue blanket
- Information sheet with important first aid instructions (e.g. for the stable side position)
Home pharmacy: Baby & Child
If children live in the household, the medicine cabinet should be equipped with some additional things. These include, for example, remedies for teething problems, creams/ointments for skin inflammation in the diaper area or fever suppositories in age-appropriate doses.
If you want to put together a medicine cabinet for a household with children, read the article Home medicine cabinet: baby and child.
How should the medicine cabinet be stored?
The ideal storage place is dry, preferably dark and not too hot. Suitable places for the medicine cabinet are therefore the bedroom, living room and hallway. A medicine cabinet can also be stored in a storeroom, protected from light, moisture and heat.
Unfavorable places
You should also not leave medicines in the car, where they may be exposed to high temperatures and direct sunlight, especially in summer. This can also damage the drugs.
Childproof storage
Home pharmacy: Further tips
Keep package inserts: Always keep the original packaging and package inserts of medications. This will help you keep track of the dosage schedule and expiration date. If a package insert is missing, your pharmacist can print out the package insert if necessary and answer questions about taking the medication or dosage.
Check regularly: Often, your home pharmacy is a colorful jumble of loose pill boxes, numerous instruction leaflets and expired medications. To prevent this from happening in the first place and to ensure that you have all the necessary medicines quickly to hand in an acute case, you should check your medicine cabinet at least once a year – ideally before the cold season sets in.
In principle, the expiration date applies only to unopened products, but no longer, for example, to drops, juices or ointments that have already been opened. The package insert indicates how long a preparation can still be used after opening.
Note on quickly perishable products such as ointments, creams, gels, drops and juices when you have opened the products.
Stop using these remedies and ask your pharmacist for advice. Many pharmacies offer a home pharmacy check as a service. If necessary, the pharmacist can send the medicines to a laboratory and have them checked for safe use and efficacy.
Alternatively, you can hand in discarded medicines at a pharmacy – but beware: pharmacies are not legally obliged to accept old medicines. It is best to ask your pharmacy beforehand!
In Austria, pharmaceuticals may not be disposed of in household waste. Instead, they should be taken to a problem materials collection point or a pharmacy.
In Switzerland, pharmacies and collection points are also the designated disposal route for expired or no longer needed medicines. Because these are considered hazardous waste, they must not end up in the waste basket. Only wound dressings and other waste that poses no danger can be disposed of with municipal waste.
Replenish in a timely manner: Restock medications that are nearly depleted early and adjust your family’s medication needs as needed.
For the same reason, medicines for animals have no place in the medicine cabinet.
Medicines that your doctor has prescribed for you for a limited period of use and that you have not used up should not be used later or given to other people.
