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patgayle

Active member
Joined
Sep 20, 2012
Messages
60
Reason
Lost a loved one
Diagnosis
05/2012
Country
JAM
State
Westmoreland
City
Negril
My husband is in a nursing home for 2 months and now that I am bringing him home, I see that he has two bedsores on his tailbone. Help. We are living in a third world county and don't have all the facilities etc. I plan to leave his shorts off as much as possible to allow air to the area. I am very concerned as there is only a small thread of tissue between the two and if it goes there will be a large gaping hole. The sores look clean and I have been told that the nurse comes 3 times a week to dress them. Does anyone have experience with this and any ideas on healing them? Please, I am calling on all you with better knowledge than me.
 
Pressure sores are caused by the blood supply to the tissue being cut-off due to chronic pressure. That's why it's important to get the PALS to change position frequently. As the PALS loss weight, the problem is exacerbated because the padding that muscle and fat provide between the boney prominences and the skin is lost. That's why they typically show up on the tailbone and shoulder blades if the PALS is bedridden and lies only on their back.

It is essential to get the pressure relieved if the sores are to heal and not get worse. This can be easier said than done if the PALS can't tolerate being put in alternate positions for sufficient time to allow adequate blood supply to re-infuse the area to allow the tissue to heal. This was a problem that we eventually faced with Annie. Once she was bedridden she was really only comfortable when lying on her back. Muscle contractures made it very painful for her to be placed in other positions. We did manage to get her partially on her side by propping pillows under her to hold her there, but she found it tolerable for only limited durations. As she lost most of her muscle tissue and all of her fat, there was almost nothing between the bones of her shoulder blades or tailbone and the skin. Eventually she did develop sores in these areas. Fortunately they never got very big or deep, but I went into full-blown emergency mode to try to curtail them and get them healed up. One of the shoulder blades did heal pretty completely and the other one got a lot better. The most difficult one was on the tailbone, but it did improve, though never healed completely.

Nursing homes are notorious for letting pressure sores develop because they typically don't provide adequate attention to each patient to get their position changed frequently enough.

It will probably be difficult for him, but I think you need to get him in different positions that keep the pressure completely off the tailbone until it heals completely. I hope very much that you can work out a variety of positions that he can tolerate for an extended period of time. Of course you'll want to shift him between alternate positions so that other sores don't develop elsewhere.

The sores can heal, but only by allowing adequate blood supply to return to the area.
 
Does those electric air mattress used on hospital beds help ?

I would imagine bed sores would be worse w/o that air mattress.
 
Awhile ago, forum member ( and retired pharmacist) recommended a product:



Miracle cure for bedsores or ulcers

Being a pharmacist, I was skeptical about finding a product that would heal some quite deep ulcers on my legs. I was worried enough to order it. The product is Terrasil. Can be ordered on the net. Within a couple of days, my deep ulcer had stopped weeping. withing 10 days, it was healed. I do not know or care what is in it, but it works, works,works. I was thinking skin grafts and this little jar relieved me of all my worries. It is truly a miracle and saved me from going to the Dr. It is a little pricey at 25 bucks a small jar, but a small jar is all you need since a thin film of it does the job. Thank God for Terasil!


I have come to know this member off line over the last year and I trust his recommendation.

Good luck to you.
 
Bowser, yes, the alternating air mattresses definitely help. Annie used a couple of different types of air mattresses. The first was a fixed-pressure alternating air mattress. This has two interspersed tubes that alternate which one is pressurized. So when one tube is deflated and the other inflated the pressure points move about an inch or 1 1/2 inches. The kind we had couldn't adjust the magnitude of the pressure and Annie found it a bit too hard. So she got a ROHO mattress overlay, which have much larger air pockets, and are inflated by hand.

She also always used a fleece overlay on top of the mattress. Her sores eventually developed using ROHO. When that happened I put the alternating air mattress on top of the ROHO, then the fleece on top of everything.

Annie said that if she had known about them she would have gotten a variable pressure alternating air mattress. They allow the PALS to adjust just how hard the mattress gets. I also know that some PALS swear by water beds, but I think they limit the amount of adjustment in bed positioning.

I'm glad you brought the mattresses up. I think they are a must-have, and help a great deal in preventing the sores from developing, though I wouldn't regard them as the total solution. And once the sores develop, the PALS needs to keep pressure off of the sores completely until they heal. This is a good example of an ounce of prevention being worth several pounds of cure.
 
I had the privilege of messaging Annie about mattresses, and specifically the ROHO overlay. What we figured out was that she was using the "Prodigy" model. At the time we talked she said she would not really recommend that anymore. Phil please correct me if you feel differently. ROHO also makes a "Dry Floatation" model which I use. It works great and is designed to treat stage 3 and 4 pressure sores. The difference is how large each little air compartment is.

One of our previous moderators Joel also highly recommended plain old sugar for treating pressure sores, so you could look into that too if medicine doesn't help.

Lastly, make sure to keep him well hydrated and nourished. That plays a bigger role in healing them than one might think.
 
Thanks Brian. Yes, you are correct. Annie did not recommend the ROHO model which she had. I agree with her opinion about it.
 
Do try the sugar. Some mix it with honey. Do a search of sugar for bed sores
 
Bless all of you for your input, we are starting to see improvement in the sore and are encouraged by that. I am going to check out the variable pressure alternating air mattress, I believe I can source something along those lines in Kingston Jamaica. I have also sourced through my Cdn and American friends 'border dressings' which are used in hospitals to stop the sores from getting any larger. Un fortunately my husband is now at the point where he rarely leaves his bed, we are crushing meds and thickening liquids, just another step down on the ALS ladder. Thanks you all again.
 
My wife has been bedridden continuously since July 6.

The Hospice CNA recommended Calmoseptine ointment as soon as a red spot was detected anywhere.
I check everytime I change the wife's Depends.

It works wonders !
 
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