Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

Did you know that you can use your Medical FSA funds to buy first aid supplies for your emergency kit?

I know all about this since I got a rather bad burn on Thanksgiving while cooking turkey. Don’t ask. Just know that I have a 2nd degree burn on my arm and I didn’t have to make a special trip to buy first aid supplies because I already had what I needed at home to get me through the first week.

Typically, it’s good to buy extra gauze and tape, the 1″ wide kind. I like sterile gauze in packs, but can’t stand paying $7-10 per box out of pocket at the drugstore. But if I have medical FSA funds that are going to go to waste if I don’t use them up, I’m all about the expensive sterile gauze. Lots and lots of it! I would rather have too much than too little and start cutting it up into smaller and smaller pieces to ration it out. I find that for a wound like a burn or something extra bloody, it’s good to have lots of extra dressing available. A burn usually needs to be kept moist and changed daily, if not twice a day. I have found that I prefer to change it twice a day to ensure that it’s kept moist with burn cream or Aquaphor. I honestly prefer Aquaphor because my old roommate (the SICU nurse) told me it’s what they use on burn patients in the hospital, and because it did a great job on a second degree burn I got once before. (It healed so well that you can’t tell where the burn is without straining your eyes.)

The great thing about this stuff is that it doesn’t expire. Unlike over the counter medicines like allergy meds, analgesics, acidic stomach meds, etc, which you might end up throwing out anyway, bandages and dressing supplies last years if stored properly.

Suggestions for your first aid kit:
Non-stick pads
Gauze pads
Rolled gauze for bendy places
Micropore tape - paper tape that is breathable! It’s great for sensitive skin, i.e. your elbow pit or inner forearm. Trust me.
Waterproof tape - for dressings that might get wet but still need to stay on till you change it. I usually get this as a 1/2″ tape instead of 1″, but they do make the wider one.
Hydrogen peroxide for cleansing without stinging (or “less stinging” than alcohol, but this does have an expiration date usually.)
Burn cream for first aid. (It’s not really for healing scars. It basically numbs a burn when you first get one. Look for creams with Lidocaine. And this usually also has an expiration date as well.)
Neosporin/antibiotic creams (Expiration date here too!)

I’m not a medical person by training. I have only some basic understanding of first aid, so if anyone out there has more knowledge they’d like to share, please do. This is just the stuff I know I like to have around because I go camping, live hard, ride motorcycles, etc. (The old burn scar is from an exhaust pipe.)