Wound Care Question - Bandages

[saramher]

What do you do if your wound has started to scab around gauze such that the gauze is sticking to the wound and you can't remove the gauze without the cut bleeding? This has happened to me many times, with both cuts and burns, and I would like to know what's the best thing to do in that situation.

[roiben]

The best thing to do is to get the gauze wet, either by using a damp cloth placed over it, or by soaking it in clean water. This will then enable you to remove the gauze.

You then need to ensure the wound is clean and properly dried before placing on the new gauze and bandaging.

Roiben x

[Gracehasaname]

Roiben is correct. The best thing to do is use some boiled, but cooled water and soak the wound, this should release the bandage and enable you to remove it. The wound could bleed a little, but it shouldnt bleed as much as a fresh wound, so apply pressure to it, and it should stop fairly quickly. Make sure that you clean it again afterwards using clean gauze and cooled boiled water, then dry it throughly and apply a clean dressing.

You should change the dressing every few days :)

[Animad]

As the others have said, soak it in warm water and it should come away.

However, unlike the others, I would not suggest dressing it with gauze again as that has a tendency to stick to wounds. Instead you want to use a non-stick (non-adherant) wound dressing and apply this in the same way as you would the gauze. If you only have gauze at the moment then one way to reduce it sticking is put a thick layer of antiseptic cream on the inner surface of the gauze or petroleum jelly (ie. vaseline) but I would go against using vaseline really to prevent it sticking as that could cause other problems as it will slow down the rate of healing as the gauze will no longer be breathable. Also, gauze does not prevent against bacteria whereas proper wound dressings do so that is another reason to use them even though they tnd to be more expensive.

[saramher]

What would be the best way to soak it? The only thing i could think of was to let the shower run over it, but that didn't work too well.

[Animad]

Fill a sink (/bath if it's on your leg) to a necessary depth with warm, preferably previously boiled but that isn't going to happen if it's on your leg as it isn't practical. If it's on your arm a small water basin like in a bathroom is the most practical with the amount of water. Leave it there to soak for a few minutes without pulling at it. Then gradually try to remove it from one corner. If it gets stuck then you can soak it for a bit longer. However, it may be that however muc you soak it it will still stick quite a lot as a scab may havve developed around it and if that is the case I'd soak it as much as you can but at the end of the day you still have to take it off but at least then it will have loosened both the dressing and any scab that's formed. And then, like I've said, using proper wound dressings is much better than gauze and if using gauze then I'd put plenty of antiseptic cream on the inner surface of it but that's still far from as good.