Drainage can tell you a lot about how you are healing.
We expect drainage to decrease as the wound gets smaller. Less drainage is one of the signs of healing that we look for as a good thing.
However if drainage increases then it may be a sign of an infection starting up especially when paired with a green pus-like texture and foul odor. A spike in drainage is usually bad. However, it's not the whole story.
Changes in drainage can also be related to the type of products you are using. It can be expected that a change in products will change how the wound reacts. For instance, if you had been airing it out or letting it dry and now are trying to keep it moist the drainage is going to change quite a bit and can be a bit alarming at first.
While it may be tempting to return to letting be dry, Moist Wound Healing is typically recommended because it's been shown to be faster, produce better scars and be less painful than airing it out or using something old school like wet-dry. There are a few instances when you want to keep a wound dry like a dry intact incision, gangrene or if you have a poor likely hood of healing from bad circulation.
If you switch to moist wound healing:
You may need a more absorptive cover dressing like foam or a specialty pad.
Change it more often. You may need to change it 1-2x/day.
Alginates soak up 20 times their weight in fluid so
There are literally 1000's of products on the market. If you are overwhelmed by what you should be using, book a consult and together we'll come up with an individualized plan just for your wound healing issues.
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