Instructions for caring for open wounds at home: Heal quickly, leave no scars

Open wound care Proper home care will help wounds heal quickly and leave less scars. However, not everyone has enough knowledge and skills to scientifically care for wounds, leading to unfortunate risks of infection or slowing down the healing process, causing financial burdens and leaving physical and mental pain for the patient.

In this article, Urgo Medical will summarize all the useful information on how to care for open wounds to heal quickly. for patients and relatives. Hopefully the knowledge below will solve the problems you are interested in and learning about.

1. What is an open wound?

According to Wikipedia: “A wound is a type of injury in which the skin is torn, cut, or punctured (an open wound) or is subjected to a force that causes injury (a closed wound). In pathology, it is considered a forceful wound that damages the skin’s epidermis.”

So we can understand that an open wound is an injury related to a tear in the skin or inside the body tissue, commonly caused by traffic accidents, falls or sharp objects…

Based on the causes of injury, open wounds can be divided into 4 types:

– Lacerations (caused by knives or sharp instruments cutting through the skin).

– Puncture wound (caused by a nail, needle, sharp knife, etc. piercing the skin).

– Open wounds caused by abrasion (when the skin rubs against hard or rough surfaces)

– Wounds causing loss of body parts (due to work accidents, traffic accidents…)

Compared to closed wounds, open wounds have a very high risk of infection. Therefore, you need to know How to care for open wounds to prevent infection and speed up the healing process, minimizing bad scars.

If the open wound is small, not too deep, and mild, it can be treated at home. In case of serious injury such as: deeper than 1cm, bleeding lasting more than 20 minutes, heavy bleeding… the patient needs timely intervention from medical staff.

In this article, Urgo Medical will focus on the topic of open wound care at home , for patients or their relatives.

2. Steps to treat open wounds at home

To prevent open wounds from becoming infected and heal quickly, you need to remember the 3 steps in how to clean open wounds at home below:

Step 1: Wash your hands thoroughly before starting.

To remove dirt and bacteria from your hands, wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap and warm water. If clean water or hand soap is not available, you can use a wet towel to wipe your hands or wear medical gloves before handling. Do not touch the wound with dirty hands because it can spread bacteria to the damaged skin, easily leading to infection.

Step 2: Wash the open wound

Saline is the best solution for cleaning open wounds, helping to remove dirt, foreign objects and debris left by the injurious object. When cleaning, you should do it gently and carefully so as not to break the skin that has been peeled off. After cleaning, pat the wound dry before applying a bandage.

Step 3: Bandage the open wound

Use a sterile dressing to cover an open wound. If the dressing does not stick, you can use an elastic bandage to secure the dressing. The frequency of changing the dressing depends on the condition of the wound and the dressing product you use, or if the old dressing becomes soiled or wet.

To help wounds heal quickly and avoid pain when changing bandages, you can learn about Urgo Medical’s advanced bandage products that apply exclusive TLC technology to help create a moist environment, stimulate the healing process and help change bandages painlessly.

For example, when caring for an open wound with little or no exudate, you can use UrgoTul mesh dressing.

3. Common mistakes in open wound care

When caring for open wounds at home, we are prone to the following mistakes, leading to wound infection or slowing down the healing process and leaving ugly scars. These include:

3.1. Do not clean open wounds immediately after injury

Whether the wound is large or small, cleaning the wound is necessary to remove dirt, foreign objects, bacteria, etc. that stick to the wound. If not cleaned properly and immediately bandaged, the wound can become infected, become worse, secrete fluid, or even become severely ulcerated, prolonging the healing process and causing physical and mental damage and pain to the patient.

3.2. Do not apply leaves or natural materials to the wound.

There are many cases of open wound infection due to self-application of medicinal leaves and natural materials that are said to speed up the healing process, but there is no clinical evidence or scientific research to confirm their effectiveness.

Therefore, you should not listen to the advice of non-professionals, and should not apply medicinal leaves to the wound to avoid the risk of unnecessary infection. It is best to Care for open wounds properly as directed by your healthcare professional, or refer to item #2 in this article.

3.3. Do not sprinkle antibiotic powder on open wounds.

Sprinkling antibiotic powder on open wounds to help them close and heal quickly is a common belief among Vietnamese people. This is the method that many people apply to wounds caused by burns, skin tears, scratches, infections, etc. because they think that antibiotics in direct contact with the wound bed will have a better effect in preventing infection than oral antibiotics.

However, this treatment is not recommended by doctors because it can potentially pose many dangers:

– Easily causes allergies, anaphylactic shock because antibiotics irritate the skin, stimulate local inflammatory reactions, easily cause allergies. More worryingly, antibiotic allergy is one of the particularly dangerous types of allergies, can cause anaphylactic shock leading to death.

– It has no effect on preventing infection because the antibiotic powder will dry after being sprinkled on the wound for a few hours. Therefore, the damaged tissue will not absorb as much antibiotic as you think and it is not very meaningful in preventing infection. In many cases, after peeling off the antibiotic layer on the outside of the wound, the inside is full of necrotic tissue and pus, and the infected wound even causes fever in the patient.

– Wounds take a long time to heal and new skin is slow to form because the dried antibiotic powder will form a scab on the outside of the wound, hindering the penetration of protective factors such as antibodies, white blood cells, blood, oral antibiotics, etc. Thereby reducing the body’s ability to protect against inflammation and infection.

Not only that, this layer of antibiotic powder also limits the formation of granulation tissue and the formation of new skin. Therefore, the healing process will be slower, even making the inflammation worse. Therefore, sprinkling antibiotics on open wounds is not recommended when open wound care

3.4. Do not wash open wounds with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide or alcohol has the ability to kill bacteria and prevent infection. However, hydrogen peroxide is a very strong antioxidant, which can also kill anaerobic bacteria; meanwhile, alcohol hydrolyzes the proteins and fats that make up bacteria. Therefore, these solutions not only kill harmful bacteria but also destroy platelets, white blood cells and newly healed tissues. Therefore, The safest way to clean an open wound at home is to use salt water.

4. Risks of improper care of open wounds

Proper care of open wounds is very important, because if not properly cared for, the patient may face a series of risks due to the penetration of bacteria residing on the skin surface.

Among them, infection is the most dangerous risk with symptoms such as: increasing pain, fever, swollen lymph nodes, ulcers or blisters, fluid (clear, green, yellow) or pus in the wound and a fishy smell, red and swollen wound…

Below are some dangerous infections that can easily occur in open wounds that are not properly cared for:

– Tetanus caused by the bacterium Clostridium tetani (C. tetani).

– Staphylococcal infection caused by the Staphylococcus group of bacteria.

– Necrotizing fasciitis caused by group A Streptococcus bacteria…

5. What kind of open wound should I see a doctor for?

For small open wounds, you can take care of them and monitor them at home. If you see signs of infection as mentioned in section 4 of this article, you should see a doctor as soon as possible for treatment.

For more serious open wounds, you must go immediately to the nearest medical facility to have the open wound treated by medical staff. properly and promptly treated. The following are cases of open wounds that require a trip to a medical center or hospital:

– The wound does not stop bleeding or the bleeding is not effective, the bleeding continues and shows no signs of stopping after a few minutes.

– Wounds caused by animal bites or human impact.

– Bruised or large, serious open wounds in dangerous areas of the body such as the chest, neck, head or abdomen…

– The wound causes the loss of a body part, such as a severed limb. In this case, while waiting for emergency care, we need to have a plan to preserve the severed limb in a clean, sealed, and refrigerated plastic bag so that the doctor can reattach it.

– Open wounds that are cared for at home but cannot be cleaned using conventional methods, or have begun to become infected.

Although unwanted, injury is inevitable in life. Therefore, skills open wound care at home is very important, deciding the healing process is fast or slow and whether or not it limits bad scars. However, if you want the wound to heal quickly and change the bandage without pain, use Urgo Medical bandage to care of open wounds at home

REFERENCES

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V %E1% BA %BFt_th% C6 %B0% C6%A1ng

2.https://www.vinmec.com/vi/tin-tuc/thong-tin-suc-khoe/suc-khoe-tong-quat/vet-thuong-ho-phan-loai-cach-dieu-tri-va-cac-bien-chung/?link_type=related_posts#:~:text=V%E1%BA%BFt%20th%C6%B0%C6%A1ng%20h%E1%BB%9F%20l%C3%A0%20m%E1%BB%99t,%C4%91%C6%B0%E1%BB%A3c%20%C4%91i%E1%BB%81u%20tr%E1%BB%8B%20t%E1%BA%A1i%20nh%C3%A0.

3.https://pkgdvietuc.com/mot-so-luu-y-khi-tu-cham-soc-vet-thuong-ho-tai-nha/

4.https://bvnguyentriphuong.com.vn/dieu-duong/cham-soc-vet-thuong-ho-the-nao-cho-dung-cach

5.https://medlatec.vn/tin-tuc/cach-xu-ly-va-cham-soc-vet-thuong-ho-duoc-khuyen-cao-s195-n20180