maggots?

[billsnurse]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone have any experience with patients coming into the ED with maggots on them? What do you use to remove them?

Just thinking about it gives me the willies and I want to be prepared if it comes my way.

Thanks

[LDRNMOMMY, BSN, RN]

Had my first maggot experience today. I work in an outpatient wound care clinic. I removed the dressing and there were maggots crawling all over the patients wound. I excused myself for a brief moment to regain my composure. I got the doc and the maggots had migrated to the old dressing at that point. I put the dressing in a ziploc bag with some betadine (per the MD's suggestion) and disposed of it in a red bag. I squashed the few maggots that made it to the floor. Called housekeeping and they sprayed the room down. I will say though that wound looked pretty awesome. All the fibrin he had in it was gone.

[beachmom]

Awsome topic people. I must say it has really sparked an interest. Also does anyone elsr have the creepy crawloes after reading this? LOL I just read this from National Geographic;

I call them microsurgeons," said Edgar Maeyens, Jr., a doctor in Coos Bay, Oregon, who employs maggot treatment. "They can do what we can't do with scalpels and lasers."

Only a few species of fly larvae, primarily blowflies, are suitable for such duty. Five to ten maggots are placed on each square centimeter (0.2 square inch) of a wound, which is then covered with a protective dressing that allows the maggots to breath. For the next 48 to 72 hours, the maggots dissolve dead tissue by secreting digestive juices and then ingesting the liquefied tissue and bacteria. The maggots grow from about two millimeters (0.08 inch) to nearly ten millimeters (0.4 inch) while doing the doctor's dirty work.

"I'm just a supporting actor here," Maeyens said. "The maggots are marvelous.

Medical Maggots Treat As They Eat

Wow, I was doing Dr. Maeyens' transcription when he did that episode! (my job before I was a nurse.) He loved maggot therapy. The maggots come in a cup labled "sterile." He got them from California somewhere. Once I got his extra maggots, put them in paint, and had them wiggle on a piece of paper. I gave it to Dr. Maeyens, telling him it was possibly the only painting in the world done by maggots.