How to Take Proper Surgical Wound Care at Home?

To reduce your risk of infection and ensure your incision heals as best as possible, you must take care of it after surgery. After an operation, where your surgeon cuts into your skin and tissues, you'll have a surgical wound. A surgeon may have performed your operation or surgical procedure, or your general practitioner or another doctor may have performed minor surgery on you. In this article, we will refer to "your surgeon." Here, we provide some general guidelines for managing a surgical wound, but it's crucial to heed your surgeon's specific recommendations. This blog allows you to take proper surgical wound care at home.

Wound recovery

Wound healing techniques

Cuts to your skin and tissues during surgery are known as surgical wounds. The edges of the cut are often brought together after your surgeon completes the procedure and secured with stitches, staples, or glue. The fundamental wound-healing process is what we're concentrating on in this article.

Your surgeon may decide it is appropriate to leave the incision exposed so it can heal on its own in some circumstances. This could occur if your incision is infected or it is challenging to bring the edges together. We refer to this as secondary wound healing. Examples include a wound that remains after a bite has been cleaned up or an abscess drained. Your surgeon will let you know if you have this type of wound.

How to treat a wound?

Most wounds in healthy individuals recover in a matter of weeks, though this can vary depending on the sort of surgery you underwent.

There are various phases to the healing process for a wound, some of which may overlap.

• Your blood contains platelets, which cluster together after a wound and release substances to stop the bleeding.

• In the early stages, your wound receives more blood flow, and white blood cells start to combat infection and eliminate dead tissue. To begin healing the wound, new cells enter the scene.

• New blood vessels begin to sprout and bring nutrients to your incision between three days and three weeks, and new tissue begins to form.

• Finally, the new tissues last from three weeks to roughly a year.

Your wound will likely heal more quickly if your surgeon heals it medically (with stitches, clips, or staples).

Keep an eye on your wound

It's crucial to monitor your wound while it heals and look for infection symptoms. Wound infections are covered in more detail in the section below. A lump may occasionally develop around your scar. This is referred to as a hematoma; inform your doctor or surgeon if you feel any lumps.

While your wound is healing, you might want to avoid exposure to the sun. The top layer of your skin produces a pigment called melanin, which gives your skin its color, yet sunlight has little impact on healing. Consequently, if you expose your skin to the sun while your wound is healing, that scar could also look different from the specific skin around that. Surgical wound care at home is also essential to get early recovery.

Dressings

The goal of a dressing, if one is required for a surgical wound, is to: • absorb any fluid that is weeping from your incision;

• provide the ideal healing environment

• Keep the area safe while your wound heals.

• exert pressure (if required)

Lastly:

You can keep your original dressing in place for up to seven days, depending on your wound. Your doctor or nurse will explain how to care for a newborn care, ICU care, surgical wound at home and when to remove the dressing.