Wound on lymphedema arm

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Sher
Sher Member Posts: 540
edited June 2016 in Lymphedema

Last Thursday I fell down a full flight of stairs. Was bruised and battered, but thankfully no broken bones. I have had lymphedema swelling in my left hand, wrist and forearm before the fall and always wear a Solaris compression garment at night, not usually daytime compression. During the fall, I managed to get a skin tear (torn off) or scrape on my forearm. It's narrow and about 2" long. The hospital used oil emulsion bandaging and gave me some to take home, but when I ran out, could find them anywhere, so switched to a petrolatum gauze dressing and soon noticed the wound begin to look worse. (Doctor then put me on Cephalexin). I quit using the petrolatum dressing and have just been applying polysporin and a non-stick pad to cover, keeping uncovered sometimes during the day. Tissue is raised and bright pink/purplish around the tear and also feels hard and tight. I've never had cellulitis and am keeping a close eye on this, but would very much appreciate any info, suggestions, etc.


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  • hugz4u
    hugz4u Member Posts: 2,781
    edited June 2016

    if it doesn't hurt draw a circle around the wound with a sharpie pen and watch to see if redness grows past. If so get back to doc assp as your infection is worsening. If you get cellulitis they usually put IV antibiotics in you with a short hospital stay, you might twist their arm by saying you want to come in everyday for your IV but go home, it depends how bad you are. Flu like symptoms can be start of the cellulitis beast.your smart to watch it like a hawk. My other post suggests Bacterim instead of polysporin.

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  • vlnrph
    vlnrph Member Posts: 1,632
    edited June 2016

    Sher, I hope things are clearing up after a couple more days of Keflex and topical antibiotic treatment. Hugz is probably referring to plain bacitracin as an alternative to the combination with polymixin. How are you doing?

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  • Denise-G
    Denise-G Member Posts: 1,777
    edited June 2016

    Please let us know how you are doing! Why is it the affected side always seem to get injured! DARN -

    hope things are improving!!

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  • Hopeful82014
    Hopeful82014 Member Posts: 3,480
    edited June 2016

    Just a heads up - When my dad had cellulitis last year I was really dismayed to see how long it took his providers to recognize it for what it was. Even once he landed in the emergency room, it would have been overlooked it we hadn't kept prodding them about the tender, red patch on his thigh. They were so focused on finding some other cause for his symptoms that they couldn't see what was right in front of them.

    From that, I've learned that even ER staff don't necessarily know what they're seeing with cellulitis - AND that every ER patient needs someone (family or close friend) there advocating for them.

    Hugz' suggestion of outlining the area with a Sharpie is one we all need to remember - thanks, Hugz!!

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  • Sher
    Sher Member Posts: 540
    edited June 2016

    Hi everyone and thank you so much for your responses! I'm doing much better - the skin tear is almost completely healed over and the bright pink/purple area has faded. My forearm is still black and blue, but that also is fading. What still concerns me is the tissue hardness under and beyond where the skin tear was. It also feels tight, quite tender and seems a little more swollen there, so thinking this may just be from the bruising? I have an old Tribute that I cut off below the elbow and have been trying to wear that in the daytime, which is helping to control the LE swelling and doesn't increase the discomfort of the bruising. Besides the arm injury, I have a fist sized hematoma on my right thigh and a small one on my head, so could it be a hematoma on my forearm? Doctor told me to use heating pad on my thigh, but don't want to do this on my forearm with LE present.

    Can you tell me please why Bacitracin is recommended instead of the combination in Polysporin? Is there something in the polymyxin B that isn't good or just that it's not as effective as using bacitracin alone?

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