URGENT

[Nirvana]

My two year old DD fell down and got hurt on the underside of the chin some time back. She had got hurt in a similar fashion at the same place in November. She bled for sometime and there's a long but superficial cut in the chin. I took her to my neighbor who's a doc and she said that it is superficial and won't need any stitches.

We tried searching for Steristrips but couldn't find any here and I forgot to get some from Dubai. We cleaned the area with betadiene and just applied sterile dressing.

The cut is pretty long maybe around 2 cm and her skin looks like its broken. there was blood too. She cried for a while and then stopped. this is exactly what had happened when she got hurt in November.

I gave her Arnica 1M one pellet. Please tell me how to handle the wound and treat her.

My mind is completely blank although I do remember there was discussion on wound care somewhere before.

Will check around the site once more. I am trying to be cool but i want to make sure i am doing the right thing. i don't want the wound to get infected or anything.

HELP

[Serephina]

How's she doing now Nirvana? I've PMed you ;)

[Nirvana]

Thanks Serephina. We found the Steri strips but haven't put them on. I hate to see my DD in pain and poor thing is going to put up a struggle when we try to change the dressings.

Anything else I can try for the dressings? I have got some betadiene cream and solution. I have not repeated the Arnica again. Will give her the Vitamin C chewables once she's up.

Still worried :(

[Serephina]

Try not to stress too much, kids are pretty resilient. I'm sure she'll be just fine :)

It sounds like the cut is only quite shallow? Has the bleeding stopped? If it's a fairly clean cut and the edges meet up it should heal up nicely with minimal scarring.

Hopefully someone else will be along soon with some advice re: wound care.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Was the cut on a table: the grass; dusty earth; garden; glass; gravel?

I take it, you've cut it for a third time now? From the sound of your first post, it sounds like this was done some time back???

If it was really superficial, and had been cleaned out, I'd not even hae bother with steri strips. If it's just sort of a split, so long as it's clean, it's fine.

Why are you worried about it now?

[Nirvana]

Hilary, yesterday was the second time around this cut happened. She slipped in the bathroom. The first time when she cut herself in November was when she slipped playing in the living room.

The cut that she had yesterday was longer and slightly deeper than the first time around because I could see a lot of the flesh staring out. But since the doc told me that this would not require stitches, we did the cleaning ourselves.

I guess my first post was written in haste and hence slightly incoherent...sorry about that.

I have manuka honey with me but no UMF is mentioned on it, although it is made in NZ. Do let me know if there's anything else I can do.

I have put the Steri strips and the wound seems to be healing well. What a fright she gave me! But she's been amazingly calm and composed while I was the complete opposite :o

[Lexie]

I'm accident prone, so I've had too many cuts to count, some superficial, some deep.

The first thing I do is clean the wound well. If it doesn't stop bleeding, I put salt on it...which burns like no other. Apparently, I'm the only person who does this. But it really does stop the bleeding quickly... In fact, if I rinse the salt off too soon, the bleeding starts back up. But like I said, it burns terribly for a little bit. I let that sit for about 5-10 minutes before rinsing it.

Then I cut open a vitamin E capsule and just squeeze it onto the cut. I find too much is better than too little when it comes to this, so I sometimes need more capsules.

I'm not into bandaids and other dressings, personally...I find they always manage to retain too much moisture and the cut takes longer to heal. I always notice that within 15 minutes of applying vitamin E, the skin has mended itself, but this is a very fragile mend that can rip back open easily. The best thing to do is to stay home and don't touch the area. It needs to repair itself. If it itches severely and I absolutely must scratch...I just very gently move my nails over the skin nearby, but never too close to it to interfere with it. This always relieves it. After 24 hours, I find most cuts are healed.

It was different when I had surgery. I seem to be an insanely slow healer unless I have my vitamin E. I had a laparoscopy and the stitches were supposed to be removed in 1 week. I just knew that wouldn't be long enough, but I ignored it. Well...the night before my appointment, I looked at my incision. Just as I expected, it was as unchanged as a fresh slice. It was really late to be finding a solution, but better late than later. So I dumped a capsule of vitamin E in and around it. By the time I woke up the next morning, it looked mended. Of course, the nurse was rough when she was removing the stitches--wouldn't you know--and I ended up going home with half of the incision ripped back open and bleeding. It's a good thing they don't make a very large cut. I simply cleaned it with a saline solution and dumped more vitamin E in and on it. Then I just lay down and tried to relax and keep calm. After a few days, I didn't even think about it anymore.

[magical1]

You're a tough cookie Lexie.

[Lexie]

hehe Thank you. I have far too many scars. Funny, as a kid--a tomboy no less--I treated them as trophies! I can't imagine what I was thinking.

[deesalie]

We treat all our wounds with manuka honey and/or colloidal silver. Not being in NZ or Oz however, it might be tricky to come by the honey...

Hope she's feeling better

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

But she's been amazingly calm and composed while I was the complete opposite :o Then give yourself a dose of rescue remedy, and leave her to heal happily :D

[Nirvana]

LOL Hilary! Is it any consolation that this time around I was much more composed than the last time? I remember I had to puke at the doctor's clinic last time...this time nada...nothing :p

One more thing...the wound is in such a place that it tends to get wet with her saliva or water. The doc said to keep it dry and not let it get wet. Is this correct? I thought the saliva has some great enzymes which will heal the wound fast. Any thoughts?

[Nirvana]

Well I thought her wound was healing well with the Steri strips but today AM I discovered that there was some wetness in the strips. I removed it and saw some fluid but I don't know if was her saliva mixed with the wound or pus :(:(

There is still a little gap between the skin with little pinkish flesh visible. Now I am getting increasingly worried that it is getting infected although my father thinks it's not and the wound is getting better. My fears are exacerbated by the fact that when she had the same wound in November within a week, the wound looked like it was drying but this time around there is still little freshness to it. Getting increasingly worried. I gave her Arnica the second time yesterday. I had given her one dose on 11th and nothing after that.

Now if I take her to the docs here, she will be miserable with me because I know how they scrub and scrub such wounds. Even the thought of it makes me sick. In the first place it was not a deep cut although I could see a little red flesh protruding out. Since the doc said it was superficial we treated it at home. Now after one week the wound still has pinkness and tiny bumps around.

What should I do?