I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: General Discussion => Topic started by: IOnlyGet5 on February 27, 2018, 05:57:35 PM
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My PD exit site is still not healed nearly 4 MONTHS after the surgery (early Nov. 2017) & it is still giving me a lot of grief! Severe drain pain (let alone fill pain & dwell pain despite Dr. reducing fill amount) has to compete with exit site pain for my attention.
Per PD nurse i use Ex Sept to disinfect & change dressing daily & usee the antibiotic cream they gAve me..Part of trouble is my site is on my waist/belt line (I wear only loose pants since surgery & usually stay in a sleep shirt & undies when at home alone to reduce friction).
What did others do to help healing? Is there hope on the horizon? I keep my tubing taped to my body a few inches to the left b/c the slightest movement of catheter is excruciating.
I was following nurse's suggestion to let tubing loosely arc a little so as not to pull too tight at site but that actually produced a deep infected "spot" about the size of a No. 2 pencil eraser so I've stopped doing that & just make sure there's no pulling.
Dr said at last visit site looks infected but nurse agreed with me it's looked like this since week one post surgery. Dr. put me on oral antibiotics anyway but I see no improvement after a week.
Any advice is appreciated...
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Drain pain eventually got better for me, or else I just became insensitive to it. I clean the exit site daily with a little hibiclens and then wipe that off with non sterile 2 x 2 soaked in exsept. Then I blot dry with a sterile 4 x 4, then apply the antibiotic cream to a split 2 x 2 sterile sponge. That snugs up under the tube so it doesn't touch my skin close to the hole. I use Medipore 4 inch tape as one square piece that covers the split sponge and hold the tube securely. Seems to keep my skin in good shape.
I know some of these supplies aren't supplied by Fresenius, but I order them on Amazon and it's not expensive. The loose gauze and tape they supplied was horrible. I also alternate gentamicin cream and bactroban cream; not sure that's very scientific but it seems to work. Hope that helps.
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Sometimes less is more. I don't change my dressing daily ever. Usually every 3 days. And my exit site looks just like the skin around it. I clean it with ExSept and then dry and anitiiotic it then I cover it all with a simple island dressing which covers it quite thoroughly and protects it from pulling and snagging. So far, so good.
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My cath was tunneled up and exited in my left breast midway between my nipple and center of breastbone. I like it there as it was easy for me to see and take care off.
As a larger guy I sweat very easily and this caused problems. Most every visit the Clinic Nurse wold cauterize the site. This went on most my whole first year. Never an infection, just a sort of clear 'wetness', red irritation. Entering my second Summer one of my Nurses decided to leave off the dressings. Nothing. My site finally healed up perfectly, and stayed that way for my next 2 years.
I forgot to mention. Most of my first year, or at least the first 6 months, I was enrolled in a study of site healing that used 'Honey' instead of any antibacterials. It worked just fine.
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I've seen Manuka Honey first aid supplies at CVS & wondered about using them.
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I think Manuka honey is a very powerful anti-microbial. I tried it on my exit site. Unfortunately, I turned out to be allergic to it.