Posted on 04/11/2012 6:36:32 PM PDT by Kartographer
here are essentially two ways to heal a wound: 1) Primary intent: bringing the wound edges together via bandage, suture, or glue. 2) Secondary intent: allowing the wound to heal “as is” when primary intent is not indicated (such as a very contaminated, dirty wound with multiple deep entry points). It’s important to close a wound by primary intent for several reasons: 1) Hemostasis (stopping bleeding): because if you lacerated a vessel with your injury, you will need to ligate it somehow. Granted, if you lacerate a major artery, you will just need to apply pressure because ligating it may compromise blood flow to whatever body area it feeds. 2) Infection prevention: since our skin provides a barrier to bacteria, this is pretty obvious why closing a wound is important to restoring that barrier. There are, however, exceptions to this rule when the wound is fairly contaminated, and by closing the wound you may actually trap bacteria under the skin and cause a deeper infection. I will explain how to minimize this chance. 3) Cosmesis: if you have a deep laceration in an area where “looking good” or “not looking like Frankenstein” is important, then repair is indicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at modernsurvivalonline.com ...
I recently had open heart surgery that went as planned. They wired my breast bone back together, sutured the chest wound and “super glued” my skin back together. But two days later, while lying in my bed in the ICU, I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating.
They had to cut my chest back open, snip the wires holding my sternum together and the surgeon hand-massaged my heart back to beating again. After leaving my chest open for the whole day to make sure I didn’t arrest again, they wired me back together the next day but couldn’t close the chest wound up because of the possibility of infection from being opened up in the unsterile ward instead of the sterile operating room.
They put me on what is called a foam vacuum dressing where a piece of foam is cut to the shape of the wound and placed down into the open wound, covered with a special tape and then hooked up to a vacuum pump that seals the whole dressing down tight. It had to be changed every other day. The idea was to bring the edges of the wound together over time and to allow for fluid drainage from the wound into a container attached to the pump. I went two months with this type of dressing until the wound finally closed up enough and I was switched to a wet/dry gauze dressing for several weeks. Eventually, after almost three months, my chest wound is closed and healing up into a scar.
But the wound was inspected closely every time the dressing was changed to make sure no infection was present. I am lucky to be alive and lucky I didn’t succumb to an bad infection in my chest.
Tetanus is one, TB is another. Yes, we don't have to worry about TB now but it wasn't that long ago when it was a real problem. In a survival situation it is likely to become a problem again. Hep A&B are also a good idea. Not a problem now but in a survival situation it could be good to know you won't catch those diseases from the blood that sprayed on your face
I am not a cat lover, but from my experience raising many dogs can relate, and that is very funny!
Interesting article.
This is a fascinating web site!
When I went through MedLab, we used anesthetized goats as our live tissue donors.
Using meat is a good idea. In practical applications, I found that suturing actual human wounds was problematic because of thickened skin and callus's.
One technique the author of the article forgot to write in is the application of Benzoin Tincture around the wound before applying Steri-strips (butterfly bandage). The strips will stay on the skin longer instead of detaching when the patient sweats.
Wow... That’s quite a story...
I hope your recovery continues well.
Druged goats are a little difficult to come by.
Human skin is a bit thin...
Something extensively calloused is not a great idea.. It won’t heal.
Deep wounds and shallow wounds are totally different animals..And the stress on a wound can be a problem too.
Deep wounds frequently require some “Stay Sutures’..Simple skin suturing will just tear out unless you relieve the stress on it.
“His response was, ‘It might be because of the popcorn in my ear.’”
That’s really funny. Four-year-old logic.
My friend’s son, about five years old, was beginning to behave badly, ignoring people, etc., and because of that was diagnosed as gradually becoming deaf. Turns out he had beans in his ears, coated with wax. Nobody knows for how long. Remove beans. Instand miracle!
Whew! You are lucky. Glad you made it through all that.
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