Wound Care Help Please!

[gryhndsr4us]

With the search option not working I am unable to look for info.

I was trying to find info on the honey used in wound treatment.

One of our fosters had a tumor removed from her hind leg. The wound is too large to stitch closed and will have to heal from the inside out. I was wondering if the honey would help with this or if anyone has any other suggestions.

 

Here is the info I received:

They could not close the wound due to the amount of tension on the skin. It will have to heal from the inside out (granulation.) They debrided more of the borders and put in anchor sutures around the perimeter. They packed the 4" diameter by 1/4" deep hole with sterile gauze and covered it with a piece of surgical sheet. They ran a tubular gauze zigzag through the anchor sutures to hold the packing in place. I have to remove the packing twice a day and re-pack the hole. That causes immense pain. It will take 2 of us each time. This will take months to heal.

 

Poor puppy:

[Guest crazy4greys]

Here is a thread I had about my foster dog.

 

http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php?showtopic=178524

 

I used the granulex from the vet and it helped a lot! Not sure about this wound if it is too deep to use it, but ask the vet about it.

 

Good Luck!

[seeh2o]

Poor baby. I believe the honey you are looking for is called Manuka Honey.

[Guest luvRgreys]

I don't know if you babies wound is too deep for this, but I think this is the honey that has been mentioned on the list. http://www.supplements.net/Wound-Honey-by-...CFRsRagod50WJPA

 

Don't have any interest in this product, just trying to help you:-) I know that when I worked with terminally ill pts the home health nurses used honey for bed sores and it worked wonders.

[rschultz]

sorry i can't be of help. I feel so bad for you and your baby.

[Batmom]

PM LynnM and onrushpam.

[gryhndsr4us]

Thank you all, I will pass on all the information to her foster mom.

[Guest LynnM]

Ranchie Thread

 

Throughout this thread, we talk about our techniques for wound care. It's nothing fancy... consistancy counts for a lot.

 

Lynn

[Guest larock]

I've been thru this exact thing with Walter.

 

Use the Granulex. The medi honey works well but on smaller wounds.

 

I feel for you and your foster... Walter had an open wound that size from a tumor removel and it took 3 months to heal...

[Guest longdogs]

The first thing is not to worry, it should heal with no problem, although it is bound to scar. We had to deal with a large open wound in a fractured leg in which bone was exposed for several weeks. Alarming as that might seem, it got better. The treatment is actually very simple. In the early days it was to cleanse the wound a couple of times daily with saline (we started off with medical saline then used buffered saline for contact lenses, but apparently clean tap water works just as well) and a light spray of Betadine and trying to get the wound exposed to air for several hours a day, with a light covering otherwise. That was the hard part because our grey wanted to remove the covering and lick or chew the wound. Believe me when I say you never want to see your dog attempting to chew its own bone. Once the wound started to granulate we stopped the Betadine because it slows tissue growth. The more the granulation, the more air-time we could give it. Once the bone had covered with granular tissue she left the wound alone and it could be fully exposed, after which it healed nicely.

[Guest LindsaySF]

I also recommend Granulex.

[ahicks51]

I would suggest not using honey, particularly if the wound is deep. Honey can contain the spores of botulinum, which will grow under certain circumstances. In this case, a wound of sufficient depth- in which there is little or no oxygen- would permit the spores to germinate, and possibly cause greater injury within the wound- even botulism. This is why honey is specifically not to be given to infants: their gut works differently than in older children, including being anaerobic (not having free oxygen). So, the spores germinate and cause "floppy baby syndrome."

 

Although honey is good in that it can be so sugary-strong as to prevent the growth of many organisms (and some types of honey may be intrinsically bacteriostatic), if the wound is indeed that deep it is probably not a good idea to use it in this instance.

[Guest longdogs]

I just want to second the above. Where honey is used for deep wounds it needs to be sterile, medical honey. It's less important to be sterile for surface wounds. For the kind of would you are describing, leaving it open and treating with saline/water and Betadine is usually the best way to go.