[kala0704]

My husband has been on wound vac therapy for 5 weeks now and it is not working. One dr. wants to take him off it and another says he is using it wrong and wants him to use a hyperbaric chamber. Why isnt that damn thing working??? No one knows why he is not healing. Any advice??

[edlee]

My experience with them was very good. From reading posts here, that seems to be the norm.

I will say that until I kicked out the visiting nurses ,,,, who weren't very good at it,,,it wasn't working as it should,, but after my wife took over things started getting back on track.

You still need to stay off of it,,,,that's the same no matter what regimen you use.

ed

[melash]

hi my husband was on the vac therapy for almost two years!ending up having plastic surgery after all that!all i found that all the vac did was stopped the wound from getting worse!didnt completely heal it!but it is a good idea IF you dont want the wound to get worse but i dont suggest that you should expect it to heal it completely!!

[irish]

wound vac is a miracle invention, but to be effective it needs to be installed correctly. not everyone who says they know how can apply the bandage so that no outside air enters. i used the vac for about three months and was told by the supplier that it could have worked in two if it was applied(bandage changed) correctly. if you have any doubt, contact wound care or the supplier and ask them your questions. one thing i found was that if it made a lot of noise, or the wound didn't improve weekly, it was probably due to improper application of the bandage.

good luck

irish

[Illinois Boy]

I've had it work good in some situations and once it made the wound worse........

And it was used correctly every time......

Jim

[edlee]

Two outta three ain't bad.

Who played that Jim?
ed

[bedrock]

HI

Generally the VAC therapy can work well. It does of course need to be applied correctly and other factors for wound healing be considered such as diet, pressure relief etc.

When I have used VAC therapy it has been for a max period of 8weeks, after this time the wound has reached the epithelialising stage where VAC therapy is no longer needed or helpful.

Best qwishes and good luck

[Illinois Boy]

Funny the times I used the vac that worked, I was smoking and not watching what I ate......

When it didn't work, I had qut smoking for 2 years and ate properly......

I guess you should start smoking and eat junk food.......

Jim

[DatsunKid]

I used the wound vac for about seven weeks on a deep tunneling wound on my ischium. I finally wound up having a surgical débridement & closure about a month ago. The plastic surgeon indicated there was a fair amount of scar tissue down deep that he figured was keeping the wound from collapsing & healing.

I believe everything was done properly, we even had a representative from KCI come out to check on things. Even though it didn't work out for me, I was very impressed with the technology... but hope to never need it again.

This post has been edited by DatsunKid: 06 November 2008 - 06:57 PM

[wounddo]

Yes
The most common reason for a pressure sore to stop healing (Not getting worse, just not getting better) is that the skin grows down into the wound fooling the body into thinking it is healed. Thje best way to identify this (called epibole Eh-pi-bowl-ee) is to take some good skin cream and gently apply it around and into the wound. Remember that skin cream will ONLY stick to skin and so if the skin cream sticks down into the wound and down the sides, thius indicates that the skin has grown down and has fooled the body into thinking it has healed. The next thing is to debride the wound to remove this skin and the wound will jump start into healing again.

No indication for hyperbaric therapy in pressure sores...bad idea. Find a good wound specialost...go to www.woundheal.org or look at the web sites for the AAWM or the APWCA. This is a relatively new speciality and not every doc is up to snuff. If any docs suggest antibiotics or hyperbarics, find someone else right away!!

[Texas Angel Ang]

I had my moments when it would work and then it wouldn't work. I found that if it is not applied correctly, it will not do the job! It is very hard to not have an air leak... I think we ran out of so much tape just trying to cover little bitty air leak's! It did however eventually get smaller but I still had to have surgery on it because I refused to keep staying in bed! I could've waited but I didn't want to take any more risks with infections and found a really good plastic surgeon/wound care doctor.

[kala0704]

Hyperbaric chamber and wound flap surgery worked!!! My husband finally healed up two days ago!!!! I pray we never have to go through that again!!!!
Thanks for the advice!

[Wheelz 16]

kala0704, on Feb 23 2009, 03:28 AM, said:

Hyperbaric chamber and wound flap surgery worked!!! My husband finally healed up two days ago!!!! I pray we never have to go through that again!!!!
Thanks for the advice!

How long was hubby in hospital for flap surgery? How did you get insurance to pay for HO treatments?