Healing wounds

Hi

I am recovering from a proctectomy and am struggling to get the wound to fully heal.

I think it's about 80% healed and have tried the following additions to swab dressings

Manuka honey
Aquacel
Silver cream

My nurse is now suggesting we try seaweed. Has anyone found this useful? Also can anyone suggest anything else?

Thanks

I pray for a speedy recovery for you.

I topped up on vit c as it promotes skin healing . If you are on steroids that can slow down the healing process. Best wishes for speedier healing. mandy

i had my proctectomy last year in feb, still hasnt healed yet ive been out forward for hyperbaric treatment to see if it helps the healing process and then a plastic surgeon to close it fully, only snag is they wont operate or take the treatment further as long as i smoked,which i think is a bit of a cop out on their side ,, if you dont have or havent had an infection, it should heal mines got infected and was a horror story for about 4 months, at some time i suppose its bound to heal although slowly and can only hope that its doing that for you,as i know that we would try anything to get a healed wound

sam357 said:

Hi

I am recovering from a proctectomy and am struggling to get the wound to fully heal...

...My nurse is now suggesting we try seaweed. Has anyone found this useful? Also can anyone suggest anything else?

Thanks

Click to expand...

A resounding "Yes" to the seaweed question. When I had my proctocolectomy, I had to have a large amount of flesh removed from around my anus and rectum. (I had left the operation for far too long and there was lots of tissue that had been damaged by the Crohn's disease.)

The surgeon decided to let the massive hole (the size of a large man's fist) heal from the inside out. He insisted that the district nurses, who came each day to change the dressing, use ONLY saline to wash the wound and Kaltostat - a calcium alginate (seaweed) dressing. It took quite a while to heal but I did not have any infection during that time - the district nurses were quite amazed!

Seaweed based dressings most certainly have their place in wound management and have the potential to work very well when indicated. The main thing to remember with this type of dressing is you need to have moisture present for them to work appropriately. They will absorb the discharge and turn into a gel. So, if you have sufficient discharge from your wound then I would recommend you give them a go.

Thanks for the comments.

I had my proctectomy in June 2014 and have been off all medication from that point.

I also had quite a lot of flesh removed due to the crohns so I can understand the healing process will be slow but sometimes it can be very frustrating.

I try to eat reasonably healthily and take a multivitamin daily but is there anything else I can do to speed up recovery?

Also since my op I haven't been overly active. Is this something I should increase? I'm always torn as to whether I should rest as much a possible or whether to exercise and keep moving?

gmm said:

i had my proctectomy last year in feb, still hasnt healed yet ive been out forward for hyperbaric treatment to see if it helps the healing process and then a plastic surgeon to close it fully, only snag is they wont operate or take the treatment further as long as i smoked,which i think is a bit of a cop out on their side ,, if you dont have or havent had an infection, it should heal mines got infected and was a horror story for about 4 months, at some time i suppose its bound to heal although slowly and can only hope that its doing that for you,as i know that we would try anything to get a healed wound

Click to expand...

What is hyperbaric treatment?

its a type of oxygen treatment, where the blood gets about 3 times the amount of oxygen to help or speed up the healing, same kind of thing as divers go into to get rid of the bends, cant see it doing much to be honest as the bleeding has been more or less the same for the last year, just have to jump through their hoops till i get the surgery done to fully close it, really frustrating

Wishing you the best