These days, for the most part, they come from home or the hospital with bedsores. QUOTE]
We moved to Ohio from Oregon to be near my DH parents. When we got here his Dad was not well. He had Alzheimers. The family was trying to care for him at home but it was not working. He spent the majority of his time in bed. I will never forget how horrible his hips were. Both sides - huge and deep bedsores.
I was outraged as the family just brushed it off saying he did it to himself.
DH and I got him to his Dr within 3 days of arriving here and the Dr immediately put him in a nursing home so he could get some proper care.
The bedsores eventually healed and for the last few months of his life he was actually enjoying being alive.
To this day I am still angry at those people for not taking care of their own flesh and blood. My DH - for a long time - blamed himself for his Dad not getting care. We were on the west coast - they were here in the same house with him .. the reason they didn't take him to the dr - they didn't want to spend his moneyYou know what that means .. they are all a bunch of greedy creeps (that was a nice word and not the word I wanted to use).
So of course they became enraged with me because I took the lead and got him to a Dr.
The end result is that none of the family will talk to DH or me because we "stole" part of their inheritance ... they are sad sad pathetic people.
That is sad, Mrs. LMB, sorry he had to go through that. It's like not taking a kid to the ER because he fell off his bike and broke his arm. I find that the kids who treat nurses and homes the worst are those that neglected their parents in the first place.
I am so glad that I work for a company who values the elderly and we take great pains in providing the best experiences for them. I've seen and heard the horrors that happen in other nursing homes and it's horrible. As I see it, I work in their home. I've worked by myself because I would not let certain nurse's aides work my unit, they simply do not care. I have also taken up the slack when a nurse who worked my days off was neglectful, I worked 6 days a week, until a replacement could be found, so as not to expose my patients to her lack of care. The Director of Nurses said she knew this was a bad nurse, but "who would cover the shift"...I found that appalling.
Back to home remedies: It has come back around that 3% hydrogen peroxide is okay to use on wounds (it was out of favor for a while there) make a solution with half peroxide and half cooled, boiled water. Use sparingly only on the wound, try not to get too much on the surrounding skin. Dab with clean gauze and then rinse with straight boiled water. This should be done twice a day to help remove any drainage.
Alternatively: a capful of bleach to 1 gallon of cooled, boiled water. Use the same way as the peroxide, but you don't have to rinse the bleach solution off. This is preferred over ointments because these cleansing techniques kill bacteria, clean off drainage and allow the wound to get air which is needed for quick healing.
Dressing for over the wound, gauze wet with cooled, boiled water, wring out well and place over the wound only, try to keep it off the surrounding skin, cover with dry gauze and tape in place. The wet gauze will keep the wound moist and draw off the drainage, the dry protects it.
At least I used the bleach trick with Shrek's wound after his surgery and he healed up fast...surprised those at the wound clinic.
