286 Posts
From what I remember about wound healing, as long as there is dark red granulation and obvious signs of perfusion it should be on the right track. Deep tissue injury takes months to heal from the bottom up and fill in with epithelial tissue.
You'll know if it's not healing if by 3 weeks or so it's still lightly colored without much visual change. Keep a close eye on on signs for infection like purulent drainage.
8 Posts
Several trips back and forth to see the surgeon for follow up, it's all coming together for me.
The surgeon was going to take my husband back into the OR on Friday to debride the necrotic and infected tissue that was still present. I asked him if we could try packing it with Iodosorb and Intra-site gel for the weekend (he wasn't overly familiar with those treatments) but he reluctantly agreed to try it "I'll try anything at this point".
When we returned this morning for the follow up appointment, we went up half expecting my husband would be going in for more surgery to clean up the necrotic tissue. We took the dressing off and the surgeon was amazed at how well it had worked on the weekend "I admit, I didn't think it was going to work"!! He was able to debride the necrotic tissue without requiring the OR to do it and so we will continue to fill/pack it as I have been for the weekend and go back next Monday for another assessment. There is lots of new tissue growth now that wasn't present even on Friday.
When I completed my assignment a couple weeks ago, I covered what you would see with a stage III ulcer and the dressings you would use to promote healing but I didn't look beyond at the actual healing process (because I was told to cut it short). While this is an undesirable position for me to be in, it's neat at the same time to see my assignment coming to life.
Thank you for answering my question... much appreciated
Jonathank
277 Posts
I would ask a mod to move your thread to general nursing. You'd be likely to get more (and better) responses there. This "student assistance" board gets a fraction of the traffic it does.