Hello,
A fortnight ago I had my lower right leg amputated (advanced diabetes). Now the wound is hardly healing, I even have the feeling that nothing is happening. It is oozing and the smell is also very unpleasant. My doctor has prescribed an ointment, which I apply daily. However, it does not bring any relief.
I am now really desperate and would appreciate any advice you can give me.
Response 1:
What you describe is not that rare (especially when it comes to wound healing in diabetes). What kind of ointment did your doctor prescribe? It is difficult to give a recommendation if you do not know the condition of the wound. There are different stages of wound healing. And if the wound (oozes and stinks) after an amputation, then it sounds like a secondary infection. There are dressings that can reduce the odour, but that's not really the end of it. I would recommend that you ask your doctor to take a swab from the wound to see which pathogens are in the wound. Then you can work on it specifically. And as for the ointment he prescribed for you ???? It can be the right one, but also the wrong one. Doctors in private practice are often hesitant about "modern wound management" because it is cost-intensive and a strain on the budget.
Response 2:
Despite a problem-free initial phase after the amputation, it took me a long time to close it (even without diabetes or any other underlying disease). I had it for about 5-6 weeks and it also bled a bit.
I went to the doctor every 3-4 weeks and he always removed all the "weird" tissue with peroxide and by scraping it away with a sharp instrument and "freshening up" the edges of the wound (which probably just looks bad here and in reality didn't hurt at all because it was dead stuff anyway, which was probably just in the way of healing). At some point it even closed up, who would have thought that at the time. It just really takes patience, it's really boring.
My blood circulation is not impaired anywhere else, but it's really bad on the stump and stays bad. The doctor had already told me that the blood supply to the stump would be particularly poor and that it would be very congested. But he also said that it was a trade-off - longer stump on the arm, poorer circulation or shorter stump, better circulation. And having more "left over" is very good despite cold intolerance and congestion and all. The arm is often cold even in summer, when I am otherwise hot or even sweating, often turns blue-violet, and is usually congested, "doughy", and somewhat overhydrated. I've already had frostbite twice at the front of the stump, it's my own fault, I should have been more careful in winter, once when I was skiing at -15 degrees. I've also had stasis eczema there, more in the summer when I don't wear anything on the stump for days and the thing stagnates endlessly. It gets better and heals more quickly (even now), even if I hit or tear something there, if I compress the residual limb relatively strongly, either with a bandage or with a compression stocking, or put the arm up - so don't sit in the cinema without a prosthesis and let the arm hang, then the thing gets thick, blue and cold and starts to hurt. Wrap it up or put a stocking over it. And the prosthesis is so tight that it works quite well in terms of compression, so (strangely enough) when I hurt my arm again, I just put something very thin on the injury (disinfect it and then put a mini plaster or bandage on it) and then put on the prosthesis and go. Everyone says you shouldn't put the prosthesis on when you have a skin injury - it's not always my experience that this is the quickest way to heal.
But you can probably do whatever you want, it's going to take ages. But I would go and show it regularly and not too infrequently, especially if it also smells funny.