Time wounds all heels

mr_ed:  And it's sure been beating me up. I'm having such trouble getting things done! Arrgh! My apologies to Sibernet folks for taking my post from there and putting it here ... but it takes me so long to write and I just have to get back to something like a normal schedule!

Someone asked about treating a bite wound on a dog. It didn't sound like a serious injury, and the consensus seemed to be to keep the wound clean with soap and water. And for dog's sake don't use peroxide! It's been proven that peroxide does more harm than good.

Some day I'd like to track down that proof and see if it's in the form of one or more valid scientific experiments. I'm not from Missouri (the "Show me" state) - I just hold proofs to pretty high standards.   :-)

In the meantime, a couple of web articles were cited, and one kind of bugged me just a little. And when you combine that with my unmanageable drive to turn anything simple into something more complex, you get a semi-long reply about wound care. That went something like this....

> Do not use an ointment that contains neomycin, because it can irritate the skin.

Tell you what. Neomycin has never irritated me, but most nurses do.   ;-)   Personality clashes. I believe in fully-informed choices, but the idea seems kind of foreign to most nurses.   :-)

> Clean the area with soap and water twice daily....

You'll have to look hard to find true soaps anymore. You're usually using a detergent with a bunch of other chemicals thrown in. As someone said, "it can irritate the skin." Fully-informed choices.   ;-)

I'm aggressive with wounds, in part because I'm diabetic and my own wounds can get infected and out of control quickly. A hole in the skin is a break in the body's first, best defense against foreign stuff that's everywhere, just waiting for the chance to build up quickly and take over.

So my approach is to keep the bad-guy population as low as possible in the area of the wound. Peroxide kills healthy cells? So does infection. Fully-informed choices.   ;-)

My "wound treatment protocol" depends on the length and depth of the wound, its location, how clean it can be kept, whether the animal eats the dressings, how squirrely they are while treating it, their overall health, and whether they're getting antibiotics.

I believe in flushing a soaped-up wound like it's the next Great Flood. I just don't like leaving that stuff on and in the skin. If I can't rinse it off well, I don't like soap.

If it's on a leg, and they're waving the leg around to keep me from working on it, I'll soap it the first time, but I may flush it with an antiseptic liquid most times after that. Iodine, alcohol, peroxide, dilute bleach. Hypochlorite only - no whiteners or brighteners.   :-)

(I know, OMG!, bleach is like nuking the healthy skin!  It's a specialized tool. Like when feces get smeared on a wound. If you use it and tell a doctor, call it Dakin's Solution.)

I like syringes to control how much liquid I use and where it goes. A vet can sell you one that has a narrow, curved tip. They really help for flushing out punctures. They work with plain water,
too!   :-)

Weepy wounds can benefit from drying-out procedures.

For fairly superficial wounds, mild heat applied to the area a couple of times a day helps improve blood flow and healing.

Punctures through all the layers of skin and down into fat or muscle are where I for sure say a visit with a doctor is necessary. They can clean and debride it better than you can, and then check for deeper damage and install drains if needed.

Well, shoot. I didn't mean to ramble on about what seemed like a simple question. Ummm ... fully-informed choices.   :-)

And that was after trimming some here and there.   :-)   Debriding it a little, you might say. Although probably not.

Tucker says Howwwdy! He hopes that everdoggy is having good dreams!