Among other complications, diabetics are prone to experiencing persistent, slow-healing wounds.There are many different ways that your podiatrist can use to treat your ulcer. These include antibiotics to treat any infection that may be present, silver padding for the ulcer, skin grafts to promote your ulcer to fill in and heal and padding to offload the ulcer.Padding an ulcer is the most important thing that you can do because a neuropathic ulcer usually results from pressure in an area. In order to get it to heal, you have to remove the pressure from the area. This can only be done by using lots of padding to protect your foot. This is why we use a large amount of bandaging to protect it and then give you a surgical boot or padded protective device to surround your foot. Even more important is to not walk on your foot as much as possible. This will reduce the pressure on your foot even more.Antibiotics are important for any wound that is suspected to be infected. A culture will often be done to determine if there is indeed an infection. Antibiotics will then be prescribed for the particular bug that grows on the culture. Infection can impede the healing process of your ulcer and can often compromise the treatment plan, because skin grafts can be rendered useless in an infected wound. We also use silver impregnated foams to fight off any infection from the area.
Skin grafts function to be able to fill in an ulcer. It promotes healing by allowing healthy cells to build into the graft. The graft will actually incorporate into your skin and allow skin to build on top of your graft. This may take several times to fill in the ulcer because an ulcer heals from the bottom up, filling in as the ulcer heals.
If you or someone you know has an ulcer, it is important for your to come in and have your ulcer treated so that your ulcer does not progress and lead to a worse condition. If you live in the North Billerica or Boston, Massachusetts area, then Dr. Wachtel would be more than happy to see you.
