12 August 2022
You can't see it in the wound pictures but just below the wound where her leg remains swollen, Joyce has developed a patch of rough skin. There's more of the same along the outside edge of her thigh and it itches terribly.
We've been using a variety of topical treatments to address these skin issues. We started with simple moisturizers favored by the nurses. Aquaphor and Lubriderm.
Then we moved up to Cortisone at the suggestion of Dana the RN. My mother's nurse uses A+D cream (those are the vitamins A and D) so we tried that.
Last Friday, Dr. Tong consulted with a dermatologist who recommended Desitin, whose active ingredient is zinc oxide (like sun screen). And like Coloplast.
She called one evening to say she had prescribed the Desitin and we should be getting it soon.
Uh, no.
It's an over-the-counter preparation used for baby rash. Even at the 40 percent concentration she prescribed, you can find it in the pediatrics section of the pharmacy. Yourself.
Which I did yesterday morning when I had to visit Kaiser for a shingles booster shot.
So when I got home, we gave it a shot. It's pretty greasy so I wrapped it in Kerlix and then put the Ace bandage over that.
Today Kristine the LVN had a look and thought it might be helping. So despite the grease and extra Kerlix (we have a lot of the stuff), we'll go through the weekend with it and see where we are on Monday.
Her skin tends to recover quickly. And if I protect it with SurePrep, the polymer sealant, it stays clear. We have a lot of that too.
What we don't have a lot of is the Mepilex pads we close the wound with, so I visited Byram's Web site to reorder.
The size we use has been discontinued.
They do have a 9x9-inch pad from another manufacturer though (and a generous return policy), so I ordered 100 of those. At two each day, that should get us well past the 30-day order restriction.
But what they don't tell you is how much of that 9x9 pad is pad and how much is the adhesive border. Or if the new adhesive is a skin irritant. So this could be interesting.
"We'll make it work," Kristine the LVN promised. And, frankly, I believe her.