venus leg ulcer

As I have no knowledge of problems as a daibetic with leg ulcers,and despite living with an ulcer on and off all my life the only advice I could offer would be to,.raise the foot of the bed about  4 inches and more if your mother can put up with it,also elevation of the leg while sitting is a must but with some activity such as walking a few times just doing something minor such as a making a cup of tea anything to keep the circulation going.

​My personal advice is a daily dressing change which I have allways done myself which may not be possible in your case,and if the ulcer is infected then the doctor is the only option for treatment.

Hello I personally don't suffer but my husband has for years, we also have been doing the daily dressings, they were off and on for 10 years but the last 3 seem to be horrible.  What kind of dressings are you using....we are using bactagrass, then optilock and then of course the coban 2 for compression.  In the past we tried iodine, inadine, iotasorb, putting flagl capsules directly into the wounds, and of course a multitude of oral antibiotics....There does not seem to be anyone here where we live (ontario canada) that knows a darn thing about them really, the wound doctor we go to has given us everything he can think of.  I am sad to say we were given that exact same option a couple of weeks ago.  He is really considering it, he is told the pain from the operation will be minimal compared to what is happening every minute of every day now.  As his wife I sympathize with you, there is just nothing we can do to lessen the pain.  I actually do my husband's changes every day.  I wont tell him what he has to do, but the first thing that came to my mind was he would not have to live with it any more....my husband takes codine cotton, tylenol 3, lyrica and still cries out...it breaks your heart every time, he has even asked me what has he done to deserve this....let me know what  you guys are doing... maybe I can offer some of the other things we have tried, you never know what works for some doesnt work for all. Maybe we can trade some advice.....

Feel for you both

I received your cry for help and can only offer from my knowledge as a ulcer sufferer for some 70 years.

​My first, is raise the foot of bed at least 100mm and more if it can be tolerated, with 50mm at the middle .

​2, Only clean the wound with boiled tapwater a pinch of salt to a cup allow to cool and apply cotton gauze soaked and rung out, turn the guaze inside out with out touching to prevent any infection and apply under medipore dressing.

​3, The leg needs to be elevated as much as possibe during the day but also move about at times to stop the possibility of deep vien thrombosis.

​4, Pressure bandage with a pressure pad over the dressing, and I also change the gauze last thing before going to bed,you can pull back the medipore an just change the gauze the medipore will restick if clean.

​While I have used the bactagrass dressing I find it will not aid the healing it just keeps it comfortable and though my dressing aproach may be painful at the start I find the healing quicker, as your husband has had the ulcer fo a long time it may be that a skin graft is the only option which means a stay in hospital but it works I had  one back in 1973 and the area is still good today, my ulcers tend to break out elswhere.

​I hope this is of some help.

I am sorry I have repied to the wrong link, My reply however is relevent for  leg ulcers but should be discussed with your medical team we are all built different and what works for one is not allways the answer,

​I hope you find an answer that helps your Mother.