Health in Permafrost is the second diamond meter in the bottom-left corner, and it tops out at 300. When a medicine, food or drink can raise it, its tooltip carries a HEALTH line. The useful question is which of those items to carry, and whether the early Bandage is worth a blueprint point over the Makeshift Bandage you start with. Below are the healing items ranked by how much Health each returns and what it cures, followed by the exact way to make both bandages.
Healing items ranked by Health restored
Items are ordered by the Health they return. The ranking reflects Permafrost version 0.44.2 on Survival.
| Item | Health | Removes |
|---|---|---|
| Medkit AFAK / MFAK / IFAK | 300 | Bleeding, Infected Wound, Nasty Wound, Parasites |
 Car Medkit | 300 | Bleeding, Infected Wound, Nasty Wound, Parasites |
 Military Bandage | 120 | Bleeding, Nasty Wound |
 Bandage | 90 | Bleeding, Nasty Wound |
 Painkillers | 75 | Infected Wound, Parasites |
 Panacea | 75 | Infected Wound, Parasites |
 Makeshift Bandage | 70 | Bleeding, Nasty Wound |
 Improvised Tea | 45 | — |
 Herbs | 25 | — |
 Whiskey | 20 | Infected Wound, Nasty Wound, Parasites |
 Edible Root | 15 | — |
 Honey | 10 | — |
 Wine | 10 | Infected Wound, Nasty Wound, Parasites |
The medkits sit at the top because they restore 300 Health and remove all four listed effects in one use. Treat them as one pick. Carry them for the worst moments and loot them rather than selling them.
Bandages are the backbone of day-to-day play. The Military Bandage heals the most of the three and still stacks to five, while the Bandage and Makeshift Bandage are what you will craft constantly. Painkillers and Panacea heal a solid amount but cost you Hunger and Energy, so they earn their place by curing an Infected Wound or Parasites, not as a general top-up.
Food and drink round out the bottom. Improvised Tea pairs a small heal with Cold Resistance, which is handy in the open, and Herbs are the raw material you turn into that tea. Whiskey and Wine heal little but remove wound effects in a pinch. Honey and Edible Root are really hunger food that happens to nudge your Health.
Fix what is draining your Health first
Health comes back slowly on its own, and much faster while you rest on a claimed bed, which ticks Energy +1 and Health +1, or while you sleep through the night. The LOW HEALTH effect shows up in the EFFECTS grid when your bar drops too far, with the reminder to use medication.
No healing item keeps up while something is actively draining you. Health falls whenever Hunger hits 0, or whenever Body Warmth hits 0 under BONE-CHILLING COLD. Using a bandage does nothing but delay the loss in that state. Deal with the cold or the hunger first, then heal.
Burning bandages during a starvation death only buys seconds. Two Makeshift Bandages were not enough to outrun an empty Hunger bar.
How to use a healing item
Open your inventory with TAB, right-click the item and pick CONSUME, or trigger it from a quick slot with the left mouse button. The heal lands immediately. An item only restores Health if its tooltip shows a HEALTH line, so hover a stack to read its value before you rely on it.
Bandage vs Makeshift Bandage
Both items stop Bleeding and treat a Nasty Wound. Craft either in your inventory with Cloth x2. The Makeshift Bandage restores 70 Health, and all backgrounds begin with one assigned to a quick slot. The Bandage restores 90 Health; crafting it also requires Surgical Spirit, and you must unlock it first.
The extra 20 Health costs one blueprint point plus a Surgical Spirit per bandage. The point is cheap, so the spirit is the real price. If you have spirit to spare, make Bandages; if you are scraping by, the Makeshift Bandage covers the same wounds for Cloth x2.
Craft a Makeshift Bandage
Unlock and craft the Bandage
Which effect each item clears
Bleeding drains 1 Health every 5 seconds; Nasty Wound lasts 300 seconds and has the remedy Use bandage. Both are cleared by any bandage. An Infected Wound cuts your stamina recovery and needs medication or alcohol, while Parasites eat your nutrition and want the same.
| Effect | What clears it |
|---|---|
 Bleeding | Bandage, Makeshift Bandage, Military Bandage, medkits |
 Nasty Wound | Any bandage, medkits, Whiskey, Wine, Surgical Spirit |
 Infected Wound | Painkillers, Panacea, medkits, Whiskey, Wine, Surgical Spirit |
 Parasites | Moonshine, Whiskey, Wine, Painkillers, Panacea, Surgical Spirit, medkits |
Surgical Spirit removes Parasites, an Infected Wound and a Nasty Wound, but it costs you 20 Health when drunk. Keep it for crafting Bandages rather than treating yourself with it.
How to know it worked
A Makeshift Bandage used at 95 Health takes you to 165, and a Bandage used at 106 takes you to 199, matching their +70 and +90 lines exactly. Once your bar climbs back above the danger threshold, the LOW HEALTH entry disappears from the EFFECTS grid, which is your signal that you are out of the warning state.
