Many of the patients who come in to the wound clinic either have diabetic foot ulcers that do not heal because of neuropathy and lack of blood flow or venous stasis ulcers, which basically is caused by slow blood flow. This week there were very few diabetic patients, and many venous stasis patients, which is quite different from the other weeks I've been there. Interestingly enough, one of the most common treatments many of these patients were using is a common household item. In fact, you probably have it right in your pantry. Apparently, honey is an extremely effective would management option, and it's pretty cheap. Patients can go to Sprout's and buy something called "Medihoney" for $20 as compared to super expensive drugs.
According to the doctors at the wound clinic, Medihoney has some of the same properties as silver (no germs can grow in it).
One of the most memorable patients this week was an older woman who had been coming in throughout the past 7 weeks with a non-healing surgical wound on her ankle from a bypass surgery and an ulcer on her toe. Although the wound on her ankle seemed to be healing, when she came in last week, the wound was nearly closed; however, this week, the wound had completely opened up again and was incredibly infected. The doctors initially assumed it was a fungal infection, because it looked rather similar to this:
A culture of the wound showed that she had a staph infection, which is bacterial rather than fungal. What was really interesting is that I was able to see the bypass put in her leg. It was not working anymore, which explain the lack of healing in both of her wounds: there was very little blood flow in those areas.
I also began my retrospective analysis this week! Mr. Loudenslagel and I went through some of the patients charts looking for diabetic foot ulcers, and he cut off identifying information. Therefore, I was able to take these charts home with me. So far, we have seven patients with diabetic foot ulcers. I would prefer to have 10 because it would make some of my calculations easier, so we are hoping to find 3 more charts.
That's all for this week! Stay tuned for next week for more information on my analysis.
Oh my gosh Alison, I am trying to imagine myself seeing that picture in real life and I don't even want to think about what my reaction would have been!
ReplyDeleteSo it sounds like with this patient's wound, it had almost healed before it became massively infected? Do the doctors have an idea of why the fungus spread so drastically later on? And what kind of preventative measures do they usually take?
Great job this week
I echo Keanan's comment - what a sight to see!
ReplyDeleteI am curious to learn more about honey/Medihoney! Is this a first line of response that is mostly home-based or is it also something that doctor's recommend to patients? Is it similar to a Neosporin or other antibiotic? Any risks/downsides to its use?
Wow Alison, sounds like a great week to come back! Do you have any idea as to why the lady's foot became more infected from one week to the next? Will it take longer to heal now because it had already taken so long to heal before?
ReplyDelete