Weeping leg ulcers

Yeah diuresis, need to make sure that gets done. The person wasn't on any diuretics

Well I slapped an ABD pad on it cause I was afraid of leaving drainage sitting on it, which can denude the periwound skin very easily. Didn't want to wrap the leg with gauze cause you don't want that biting into the skin of the edema gets worse.

We'll revisit it tomorrow I guess.

When I worked home health and had a patient such as this, I would cover the skin opening with a hydrogel pad, which will absorb drainage and applyed an unna boot. Unna boots will help with the edema and the weeping. Also needs diruresis big time.

Calcium alginates are quite effective in absorbing tons of drainage and keeping the periwound skin reasonable dry and healthy. Good luck!

It will be interesting to see what the end result answer is for this patient. We occasionally have patients that have weeping from leg edema. Normally we elevate and use the soaker pads under neith the legs.

We normally do everything we can to prevent this from happening, but you get a little skin break and all of a sudden you have a venous stasis ulcer.

Yes, she has lymphedoema.

Agree with diuresis and elevating the legs. Is it possible there is a cellulitis as well? Is there any odor or cloudiness to the drng? Is the skin very red and indurated around the break? Then maybe also an antibiotic is needed.

I have seen this managed a few different ways.

One is to apply an adaptic to keep the periwound skin protected from maceration, then applying and freq'ly changing the abd's or whatever dsd on top. I have seen ca alginate drsg's used which do absorb well and protect the peri-wound skin, and then just telfa's w abd's on top. Nothing usually works unless the pt gets diuresed.

Another good thing to do if she has chronic lymphadema is to get alternating compression boots ordered. They can be applied over the drsg's too. I have seen lots of pt's use these in the home, and if they are compliant, they avoid this exact situation.

The WOCN treated my Mom's legs as if they had been burned. Her heart failure was the culprit and diuresis really helped, but treating the skin like burned skin made her comfortable and reduced the chance of infection. They used meds and dressings that are normally put on burns.

Originally posted by purplemania

The WOCN treated my Mom's legs as if they had been burned. Her heart failure was the culprit and diuresis really helped, but treating the skin like burned skin made her comfortable and reduced the chance of infection. They used meds and dressings that are normally put on burns.

That is really interesting! Did they use Silvadene then? Or bacitracin? I'm asking so I can think about suggesting this the next time I see it.

Jay Jay, good job. I was just saying what I have seen done, I still am not sure I have seen anything actually work aside from diuresis and antibiotics though. It is a very chalenging wound situation, and it seems it is not managed consistently, at least in my area. If you look in the wound forum, I posted about this a while back too, looking for advice, b/c it is just a real problem.

https://allnurses.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32898&highlight=weeping+wound

Just found out that it was probably caused by the fact that one of the T.E.D stockings had been missing for a few days and she had gone without on her affected leg. Grr, how easy would it have been just to order another pair from stores?