What Medicine to Keep at Home in the Philippines: A Practical Family First Aid Kit

The core ten for an expat medicine cabinet and kit: paracetamol, oral rehydration salts and eight more

If you buy only ten things, buy these. They cover roughly eighty percent of what comes up in a household here. Generic names are given so you can say them to a pharmacist directly.

1. Paracetamol. The default household analgesic and antipyretic, sold everywhere in adult tablets and children's syrup. First choice for fever, headache, toothache and — critically — for suspected dengue, where it is the only antipyretic considered safe. Stock adult and paediatric forms separately; do not split adult tablets for children.
2. Oral rehydration salts. Sold as sachets. In diarrhoea, vomiting or heat exhaustion, rehydration matters more than stopping the diarrhoea. Priority is higher here than in temperate countries — keep three to five sachets.
3. Loperamide. For ordinary diarrhoea without fever or blood, enough to get you to a clinic or through a journey. Do not self-treat with it when there is fever or blood in the stool, which suggests an infection needing assessment.
4. An antihistamine (cetirizine or loratadine). Reactions to insect bites, seafood, mould and dust mites are far more common here than most newcomers expect. Keep adult tablets and a children's syrup.
5. Povidone-iodine antiseptic, widely known here by the Betadine brand. For grazes, cuts and coral or rock injuries at the beach. Wounds exposed to seawater infect readily — rinsing with fresh water is not enough.
6. Dressings: sterile gauze in two sizes, medical tape, plasters including a waterproof box, an elastic bandage, and small saline vials for irrigation.
7. An antacid. Local food runs rich and sweet and social eating is frequent; stomach complaints are among the most common household issues.
8. A topical anti-itch or cooling balm. The local mentholated balms and liniments work well and act fast on bites.
9. Insect repellent with DEET or picaridin. In the Philippines this is not optional; it is the first line of dengue prevention. Apply before outdoor activity at dusk and dawn.
10. A digital thermometer. The pattern and duration of fever is a key clue for dengue, and guessing by touch does not count.

All ten can be assembled in one trip to Mercury Drug, Watsons or Southstar. Philippine pharmacists advise readily on over-the-counter choices and are worth asking — how to shop and compare is covered in buying medicine at a Philippine pharmacy, and drug name equivalents in common medicine names and their local equivalents.

Tropical first aid essentials: insect repellent and what else sits beside the medicines

Medicines handle symptoms; first aid supplies handle accidents. Three kinds dominate in Philippine households: cuts and grazes, kitchen burns, and outdoor sprains and sunburn. Stock for those three and you are covered.

• Cleaning and dressing: sterile gauze in two sizes, non-woven tape, waterproof plasters, an elastic bandage, a triangular bandage, medical scissors and tweezers for splinters and barbs, disposable gloves.
• Burn care: a burn gel or dedicated dressing. Open flame and hot oil are standard in kitchens here, and burns are common. Correct handling is cool running water for long enough, then cover — not toothpaste or other folk remedies.
• Cold packs: a reusable gel pack in the freezer or instant cold packs. Used for sprains, knocks and swelling after bites.
• Sun: high-SPF sunscreen for island trips and an aloe-based after-sun gel. UV is strong year round and first-time island visitors routinely burn badly enough to blister.
• Miscellaneous: disposable masks, hand sanitiser, a small torch (essential during the outages that occur here), and a card listing emergency contacts and allergies.
• Optional but useful: a blood pressure monitor if an older relative lives with you, a pulse oximeter, and a scale for weight-based paediatric dosing.

Put all of it in one clear box with a handle, in a place everyone in the household knows, rather than scattered across drawers. Loose items are exactly what you cannot find during an outage — and for what to do about refrigerated items when the power goes, see handling the fridge during a power outage.

Additions by household: children, older relatives, island trips

The core ten is the foundation. Add according to who lives with you.

With young children:

• Paediatric paracetamol syrup and drops, dosed by weight, plus a graduated oral syringe.
• A children's rehydration formulation in a flavour they will actually drink.
• A children's antihistamine syrup.
• An ear or forehead thermometer, far more practical with a child who will not sit still.
• Mosquito patches and a repellent at a concentration appropriate for their age — ask a doctor for infants.
• Prickly heat powder or calamine lotion; heat rash is near universal in this climate.
• A copy of the vaccination record kept with the kit — see childhood vaccinations in the Philippines.

With older relatives:

• At least a month's buffer of long-term prescriptions, refilled before the box empties, never after.
• A blood pressure monitor, and a glucose meter with strips (strips expire — rotate them).
• A weekly pill organiser to prevent missed and doubled doses.
• A card in English listing medications, doses, allergies and medical history. In a Philippine emergency room that card is more useful than a translator. For those living alone, see emergency planning for older relatives living alone.

For households that go to the islands often:

• Motion sickness tablets, which only work taken in advance.
• Waterproof plasters and plenty of antiseptic — coral cuts infect quickly in tropical water.
• Ear drying drops; swimmer's ear is common here.
• High-SPF sunscreen and after-sun gel.
• Portable rehydration sachets, since island pharmacies are sparse.

Travel medicine checklist: what to bring from abroad and what to buy here

Luggage is finite, so separate what is everywhere here from what genuinely is not.

Worth bringing:

1. Your own long-term prescriptions. Brands, formulations and strengths for chronic conditions — blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid, anticoagulation, psychiatric medication — often differ here, and switching needs a doctor's assessment. Bring a transition supply plus the prescription and an English diagnosis summary so a local doctor can continue it.
2. Familiar remedies from home that are hard to source here. Chinese patent medicines appear occasionally in Chinese supermarkets but with thin selection, high prices and frequent stockouts.
3. A few specific topicals: the anti-itch liquid you are used to, quality plasters, a thermometer you trust, children's cooling fever patches.

Not worth bringing — buy locally:

• Paracetamol and other basic analgesics, which are inexpensive and everywhere.
• Rehydration salts, loperamide, antihistamines and antacids.
• Antiseptic, gauze, bandages and plasters.
• Insect repellent — local products are formulated for local mosquitoes and often work better than imported ones.
• Sunscreen, available in every size including at beach kiosks.

An overlooked argument for localising: when you end up in a Philippine clinic or emergency room, the doctor recognises locally circulating brands and strengths. A household running entirely on imported medication costs the doctor extra time verifying ingredients. Long-term residents should gradually shift routine medication to generics available here, keeping imports only where genuinely necessary.

Bringing medicine into the Philippines: what needs clearance

Reasonable personal quantities of ordinary over-the-counter medicine rarely cause trouble. Problems come from three things: controlled ingredients, bulk quantities, and unlabelled loose tablets.

• Keep prescription medicine in its original packaging with the insert, and carry the prescription or an English diagnosis letter. Decanting pills into an organiser or a plain bag is the single most avoidable mistake — nobody can verify what they are.
• Controlled ingredients may need prior authorisation. Codeine-containing cough preparations, some sedatives and sleep medication, pseudoephedrine combinations and certain attention-disorder medications fall under controlled substance rules, and bringing them in may require clearance from the Philippine FDA or the relevant regulatory system. Check these individually before departure rather than assuming 'it is only a cold medicine'.
• Keep quantities to reasonable personal use. Large volumes of a single product can be treated as commercial importation requiring a permit. Enough for you and immediate family for the trip plus a buffer is the safe framing.
• Herbal materials and animal-derived preparations carry quarantine risk. Plant material engages agricultural quarantine; animal-derived ingredients face stricter restrictions. Finished packaged products are far safer than loose raw material.

Full rules, declaration procedure and the situations where items get held are covered in bringing medication into the Philippines. Rules change, so confirm against current Bureau of Customs and FDA issuances.

The reverse also applies. Taking medicine out of the Philippines to another country is governed by that country's rules, which frequently restrict narcotic and psychotropic ingredients. Easy availability here does not imply easy admissibility there.

Storing medicine in the tropics: humidity is the real enemy

In the Philippines, medicine more often fails from moisture than from age. Constant humidity softens and discolours tablets, fuses effervescent forms, deforms capsules and ruins test strips. Practical rules:

• Not in the bathroom. Shower heat and steam make the worst possible storage environment, and the consequences here are worse than in a dry climate.
• Not in the car. Cabin temperatures in an outdoor parking space can ruin a box of medication in an afternoon.
• Use a sealed box with desiccant. Put the whole kit in a gasketed plastic container with food-grade desiccant packs, replaced periodically.
• Date everything on opening. Syrups, drops and eye preparations have an in-use life far shorter than the printed expiry — write the opening date on the bottle.
• Plan for refrigerated items. Insulin, some biologics and certain opened drops need refrigeration, and power outages are not unusual here. Keep a cool bag and ice packs, and move these first when an outage runs long.
• Audit twice a year. Pick fixed dates — January and July work — to discard expired stock, replace what has been used, refresh desiccant and update the household medication card.
• Mould behaves the same way. It reaches every cardboard box in a cabinet; the approach is the same as in controlling damp and mould in a condo unit.

Buying locally: the Philippine pharmacy, generics and over the counter medicine

Two pieces of knowledge determine whether you overpay: the generic-versus-branded gap, and where the prescription line sits.

First, generics. Philippine law requires generic names on labelling, and pharmacists can offer generic equivalents within what the prescription allows. Ask directly: 'Is there a generic for this?' Same molecule, same strength, frequently a substantially lower price — and over a year of chronic medication the difference is significant.

Second, what needs a prescription. Antibiotics and most chronic-disease medication require one, and reputable pharmacies enforce it. Do not go looking for somewhere that will sell antibiotics without a prescription to save a consultation fee — self-prescribing risks both masking the real problem and producing a harder one through wrong dose or duration. The consultation process is described in how to see a doctor in the Philippines.

Third, where to buy. Mercury Drug has the widest coverage, present in nearly every mall and neighbourhood; Watsons and Southstar are also common in malls. Mall-based chains offer more reliable sourcing and storage conditions than informal neighbourhood outlets. Most chains run loyalty cards worth having if you buy regularly.

Fourth, local products worth keeping:

• Mentholated balms and liniments — effective on bites and muscle aches, and inexpensive.
• Sachet rehydration powder — cheap and universally stocked; keep some at home and in the car.
• Local-brand repellent sprays and patches.
• Waterproof plasters, a consumable in coastal life.

If you have just arrived and have not yet worked out how clinics, emergency rooms and insurance fit together here, Yixing's settling-in advisers can map the healthcare side for you rather than leaving you to test providers one at a time.

When to stop self-treating and go to hospital

Draw the boundary clearly: a home kit handles minor problems and the waiting period. It does not replace assessment. Any one of the following means stop and seek care.

• Fever lasting more than three days, or resolving and returning. Here the first thing to rule out is dengue.
• Dengue warning signs: severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, bleeding gums or nose, spots of bleeding under the skin, extreme lethargy or restlessness, or deterioration after the fever breaks. The 24 to 48 hours after defervescence is the most dangerous window, not a sign of recovery. See what to do when you suspect dengue.
• Diarrhoea with high fever, blood in the stool, or clear dehydration — markedly reduced urine, cracked lips, dizziness on standing. See handling food poisoning and diarrhoea.
• Breathing difficulty, chest pain, altered consciousness, seizures, or severe headache with neck stiffness. These go straight to emergency services.
• Animal bites and scratches. Rabies risk here is real, and any bite warrants prompt assessment for post-exposure prophylaxis regardless of size. No home kit addresses this.
• Deep wounds, wounds with embedded material, or injuries from rusty metal, where tetanus prevention needs a clinical decision.
• Infants and toddlers with high fever, refusal to feed, or unusual listlessness, or any change that simply feels wrong. Children deteriorate fast; go early.

Three preparations beat five extra boxes of medicine: know which nearby hospital runs a 24-hour emergency room and how to get there (see using a Philippine emergency room); keep insurance card and policy number in your phone; and write the household's allergies and current medications on one English card in the kit. When you need any of it, you will not have time to look it up.