Keeping pressure off wound while seated

[NoDecafPlz]

Spiney, if anything happens to you, I promise to take of that pretty young thing of yours!

But seriously, we are usually right about knowing our bodies better than anyone else. With certain things though, we have to bite the bullet and do the time.

So don't screw around. Start gaming from bed to distract you from your prison sentence but do your time!

[Cspine]

Bowels and bladder are not leaking into this wound I hope?

It's nowhere near that deep, probably just nasties from night time incontinence. Heading to the doc now.

[Cspine]

So a previous culture came back with nasties sensitive to cephlex or bactrim, but neither worked. A biopsy was taken, and while waiting I'm using a frequently changed bandage and microcyn as a cleanser. Giving the vac a few days off while this gets sorted. I've heard great things about microcyn, hope it works well.

I'm kinda concerned about my temp though.... I'm at 100.5 F

[ilmx34]

Well my experience was a bit different. Around 4 years ago I had a VERY LARGE and deep (to the bone) wound with a lot of tunneling. I went to two surgeons and both told me the same thing, surgery would be the very last option, they both said "if you have surgery I can almost guarantee you that you will be back to see me in six months". So I went on the wound VAC for 10 months. I was told I could do pretty much as I please with the VAC on so I went on disability from work and stayed in bed part time, I still got up in the morning and drove out for breakfast, went out to eat with my wife, worked around the house and even took two out of town trips of course all while wearing the VAC. I never let myself stay up more than one to two hours before taking a bed break. I had a nurse visit the house three times a week to change the dressing and yes mine smelled terrible the entire time it was sucking out the crap from the wound. She would measure the wound weekly and yes with the VAC in place and me doing many of my normal home activities it healed, we found NO difference if I stayed in bed or not. In fact the last month or so they had to keep it from closing so I could get rid of the tunneling. For over 10 years I had been fighting the pressure sores while working and in the past I ALWAYS stayed in bed, but with the VAC I myself seen no difference in the heal rate if I was in bed or not as long as I took breaks and kept a good tight seal on the VAC. I am not saying this is correct way to act only that my surgeon said with the VAC I could get around and do the thing I had to do and in my experience he was correct. I use a 4" Roho cushion.

Good Luck
Tim

[Cspine]

What was the cause of your wound Tim?

[lynnifer]

I am sooo not a fan of Microcyn for a wound that's deep.

[SCI-Nurse]

I, too would be hesitant to use Microcyn on a deep wound. Does you physician know this is how you are handling this? Any recommendations from him? And although Tim reports that he did not stay off the wound when using the VAC, the recommendations fromk the manufacturer are to stay off the area as much as possible. That is not to say you can not get up, but you really should minimize it.
CKF

[Cspine]

I ditched the wound vac and have been using Puracyn to clean out the wound, as well as a Roho cushion with a few of the little bladders things taped down as mentioned before. It has been slow, but is fillling in nicely.

[Curt Leatherbee]

It takes a long time for these things to heal so don't get discouraged.

[ilmx34]

What was the cause of your wound Tim?

Sorry for the delayed response, I don't always have time to review the threads I post too. My wound was caused by working 12 hours a day in my chair, the sore appeared in October but I did not want to take time off work until after the first of the year, I knew it was going to get bad and it did. I took the time off starting in Feb when it was best for my schedule and started new fresh year on my insurance deductable. I know this is NOT the way to do things but it worked well for me.

[kovyfan1127]

Not that I recommend this, but I have had several small pressure sores in the same area over the years.

But, I was able to heal them while sitting.

My skin down there is pretty "loose", so I was able to do a slight pushup with my elbows, and "pull" the damaged skin back so it was partly up toward the small in my back (where no pressure was) and then lower myself down on my Roho.

Then, I would make a point not to do pushups or try to move so the skin didn't "slide" back down to wear it would get pressure. But, this worked believe it or not.

The only downsides: You would get some "butt juice" ocasionally since your buthole is kind of partially up your back. Or, you could get a "3rd eye" poop partially sticking out since your rectum is now more free.

Now, if the wound is the size of a quarter or infected, I don't think that this technique would work.

[swalker23]

I wish you the best of luck with nursing your soar. I'm nursing a small one myself it is my second(same spot as first) in my 9 years of being injured.