Wound Care Surgeons in California: December 2021

Dec 13, 2021

A Small Guide On Wound Care First Aid — How To Treat Burns Or Bleeding Cuts?

What is a wound? A wound is damage or injuries that break the skin or other body tissues. It can be minor cuts, scrapes, scratches, and punctured skin but how would you take care when you get your finger cut while cutting vegetables or a spider bite or stovetop burn or anything else? We cannot ignore everyday injuries but handling them quickly or calmly can heal those wounds effectively. This is when the first aid takes place and ensures proper care and treatment.

Why Is First Aid Necessary?

Healthy and intact skin is a natural barrier to germs but when it gets broken due to any injury, it becomes a treat for germs to enter our bodies. Applying proper and appropriate first aid to a wound can faster the process of healing and reduce the risks of infections.

To help you know and understand how to take care of broken skin at home, we have come up with the essential wound care first aid tips. They help speed up healing and avoid infections. Let’s have a look:

1.Don’t Worry About Slight Bleeding — The very first step towards aiding any wound is to get control over bleeding but small or slight bleeding can be helpful to clean out the wound. Most small cuts and scrapes can bleed quickly and applying pressure with a clean tissue or sterilized piece of gauze to the site can help remove the unwanted material soon. If the blood soaks through, keep applying pressure until the bleeding stops.

2.Wash Your Hands First — Before cleaning or dressing the wound, you need to ensure that your hands are clean to prevent contamination and infection of the wound.

Gangrene: Symptoms, Causes, And Treatment

Gangrene occurs when the tissues in your body die after a loss of blood caused by any type of illness, injury, or infection. In other words, it often occurs when the tissues are not getting sufficient blood from your circulatory system and it causes tissues to die in some part of our body, often the hands or feet. It generally affects the areas farthest from your heart such as toes or fingers but it can also affect other parts of the body including internal organs. There are different types of gangrene and all of them require a Gangrene Dressing Specialist for effective and safe healing.

The patients are at higher risk of developing gangrene who have an underlying condition such as diabetes or hardened arteries that can damage your blood vessels. It generally develops in specific body parts such as a leg, hand, or internal organ but it can spread through your body and can cause you to get in shock if not treated well.

Symptoms of Gangrene

There are two main types of gangrene which are known as Dry and Wet gangrene.

Dry Gangrene: Also known as mummification, dry gangrene usually starts with a red line around the affected area. The area turns dry and black.

Symptoms of Dry Gangrene Include:

● Wrinkled skin that changes from blue to black and eventually comes off.

● An isolated area of your body feels ie. Cold skin

● Wound filled with pus or releasing a bad odor.

● Numb skin

● Pain

● Sores can occur repeatedly in the same place of the body

Wet Gangrene — It is also a possibility to experience wet gangrene that affects your inner tissues or organs. In this case, you may not notice any symptoms on your skin or limbs, however, you feel pain, or fever for a long time, or low blood pressure.

All You Need To Know About Atypical Wounds

The different types of chronic wounds, for example, arterial, venous, pressure, neuropathic, surgical, or burn are diagnosed and treated as per the prescribed principles of treatment and techniques. But if the patient is suffering from a wound with a different appearance or does not heal quicker with the conventional standard medical care, Atypical wound care first try to determine the factors causing restrain healing or consider a different approach of diagnosis and treatment.

Atypical wounds are those that cannot be defined under one of the primary chronic wound healing categories. An untreated disease that may not heal with regular treatment can cause an atypical wound. The etiology for the atypical wounds should be considered when the location of the wound seems uncommon to occur a common chronic wound. The appearance may not look like a typical common chronic wound and the wound does not respond to conventional therapy. Some of the main causes of atypical wounds include leprosy which is now becoming a common cause in most countries.

Key Takeaways (Characteristics Of Atypical Wounds):

●The location of the wound may vary from that of a common chronic wound.

●The wound does not get properly treated with standard medical treatment

●The clinical appearance of the wounds is different from that of a common or chronic wound.

Burns And Scalds — Causes, Symptoms, And Treatment

What Are Burns And Scalds?

Burns and scalds occur when there is damage to the tissue of the body. The burn is caused by heat, for example, from an iron or fire, heat from the sun, chemicals, or electricity. But what are scalds?

Scalds are wounds caused by something wet, for example, hot water or steam, etc. In other words, both burns and scalds are damage to the skin tissue caused by heat and both can be treated in the same way.

Key Takeaways:

1. Burns and scalds can be very painful and range from being a minor wound to a severe life-threatening emergency.

2. The severity of the injury depends on the depth and size of the wounds.

3. The recovery period is usually long and complex.

4. As young children have thinner skin than older children and adults, the burns can be deep and at a lower temperature.

Symptoms Of Burns And Scalds

The symptoms of the burns and scalds depend on the severity of the wounds. Minor burns can be painful while major burns can be more dangerous. If there is a superficial burn, it can affect the outer layer of the skin resulting in blisters, red, or a painful condition while a deep burn may appear as mottled red and white. Burns and scalds are a painful condition. A full-thickness burn may appear as brown, black, or white and feel dry. Symptoms of Burns And Scalds include:

Osteomyelitis: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment — Wound Care Surgeons

Osteomyelitis is an infection, inflammation of the bone, or the bone marrow that can be bacteria, or fungal. It is a rare but serious condition where the bones can become infected in many ways. It occurs when the bacterial or fungal infection reaches the bone by traveling through the bloodstream or spreading from the nearby tissues. If you have an open fracture or surgery, it may expose the bone to infection.

Smokers and people suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes or kidney failure are at higher risks of developing Osteomyelitis. Osteomyelitis may occur in people with diabetes in their feet if they have foot ulcers. If you see any signs of Osteomyelitis, you must immediately consult Chronic osteomyelitis wound management for effective and safe healing. If it is left untreated, the infection can lead to severe chronic and can cause poor blood supply to the affected bones. If this is the condition, it can lead to the eventual death of the bone tissue.

Who Gets Osteomyelitis?

Both adults and children can develop Osteomyelitis but differ among age groups depending on the bacterial and fungus infection. Osteomyelitis can affect the vertebrae and the pelvis in adults while in children, it usually affects the adjacent ends of long bones. Following are the people who are at a higher risk of developing the disease including:

1. People with diabetes, Sickle cell disease, HIV, or Rheumatoid arthritis.

2. People with a weak immune system

3. Intravenous drug use and Long-term use of steroids

4. Poor blood supply

5. Any recent injury

6. Bone surgery etc.

Dec 12, 2021

A Summary On Infected Wounds — Symptoms, Treatment And Prevention

Any infection in a wound occurs when germs, such as bacteria, enter a break in the skin and start growing within the damaged skin of a wound. The infection may occur in the skin or can affect surrounding tissues or organs close to the wound area. The minor infection in the wound can be treated at home but if the person has a more severe or persistent wound infection must seek the services of Wound Care Surgeons. Here, in this blog, we are explaining the ways to prevent, treat, and recognize an infected wound. Keep reading to know more.

How To Recognize An Infected Wound?

Wounds can become infected when harmful bacteria attack in the break in the skin and slows the healing process. It causes the risks of scars and in some cases, the infection can further spread in the other parts of the body.

Here are a few symptoms of wound infection:

1. Redness and warmth around the wound.

2. Pain, Swelling, or redness near an affected area

3. Yellow or green discharge from the wound

4. Bad odor from pus

5. Feeling fever and cold

6. Pains, vomiting, nausea, etc.

Causes of Infected Wounds

Generally, open wounds are more prone to develop infections as the breakage in the skin invites germs to enter into the skin causing slow healing.

What Are Surgical Wounds? Risk Factors And Treatment

What Is A Surgical Wound?

A surgical wound is a cut or incision through the skin that occurs during surgery. It is usually made by a scalpel and known as a surgical wound. Some of the incisions are small while some can be long, as the size of an incision depends on the type of surgery you have undergone. Apart from this, a surgical wound can also be the result of a drain placed at the time of surgery. Surgical wounds are often closed with sutures but sometimes they are left to heal. Surgical Wound Care involves skin cleansing, protecting, and monitoring to prevent infections and enable faster-wound healing.

Risk Factors Of Surgical Wounds

Any surgical procedure causes a surgical wound and the risk factors for developing surgical wound infection involve suffering from any type of medical issue such as diabetes, or poor immune system, etc. The people who smoke, older adults, and people with heavyweight are more prone to have an increased risk of infection. Apart from this, emergency surgeries, abdominal surgeries, and surgeries that take longer than two hours can cause a higher risk of infection.

Originally Posted: https://woundcaresurgeon.medium.com/what-are-surgical-wounds-risk-factors-and-treatment-e9e8d4019a9

All You Need To Know About Malignant Wounds

What Is A Malignant Wound?

Chronic wounds are those that can worsen a patient’s quality of life especially the oozing, bad odorous, painful and bleeding malignant wounds. They usually occur when a tumor spreads and seizes surrounding skin & blood vessels causing them to break down. Due to the poor blood flow, the area does not get proper nourishment and eventually the tissue die results in a malignant wound. It can be very painful, smells, bleed, or ooze fluid. The symptoms are difficult to be noticed for people with advanced cancer. The treatment for malignant wounds usually does not heal the wound rather than limits the symptoms affecting people’s life.

Malignant Wounds, also known as malignant tumors, fungating ulcers, cancerous wounds, or ulcerating wounds are the open cancerous lesions of the skin that occur in people suffering from advanced cancer. It may be draining and usually develop in the last six months of life or around the tumor-like a cavity or open area on the surface of the skin. People with advanced cancer can also notice this as skin bumps or improper growth on the skin’s surface. Cancer such as breast, head, neck, primary skin, gastrointestinal, and lymphoma are the most common types causing malignant wounds.