wound care

[zeezai]

hi. i'm new to the forum. i had bb implanted 3 weeks ago. on the 2nd week, the dr. took out the strips and stitches and found a small infected area. been taking antibiotics and cleaning the wound.

 

i just wanted to know if anyone has had problems like mine? and how did you do wound care?  i use hydrogen peroxide, betadine then apply antibiotic ointment.

[simekj]

Hi Zyrah

Mine was fine for the first week until i had a shower and the chemicals of the shampoo must have irritated the scar tissues and made it quite red, sore and itchy.  the doctor prescribed crystaderm cream for scabs and I rubbed that on liberally several times a day.  It was soothing and sorted it out fast enough.  I did not need any antibiotics as we dealt with it before it became infected.  I tried paw paw gel a couple of weeks later and it was okay too.  One area bled when I scratched it so i put some antibiotic cream on it for a couple of days but that was it.  Mostly mine healed really well.  the chemicals you are using are all strong and should definitely do the job.  If it is an internal infection I would ask for a course of oral antibiotics since it is in the head.  but your surgeon/doctor should determine if that is necessary or not.  I would be wary of over using hydrogen perioxide though as that is a strong chemcial for the skin.  You might prefer a soothing cream instead?

Hope your wounds heal well for you.

Cheers'

Karen

[zeezai]

Thanks for the reply. The surgeon has finally determined that the swelling and delayed healing was caused by an allergic reaction to the stitches. Once he took them out, the swelling significantly reduced and has been healing quite well, however, there is now a small crater-like wound where the knot of the stitch was. That's the main focus of the wound care now. The rest looks great.

[Janine6]

Hi there! Interesting to read about your experiences. I'm now 5 days post op and have a wound in my ear canal that is bleeding a little and has orange watery liquid seeping out. I was told this is a positive sign (?) and is just some leakage from the mastoid bone. Where the implant is it feels like I have a golf ball on the side of my head just above my ear - did others experience this and how long did this swelling take to go down, assuming it does!. (Sorry for the small text, I'm replying on my mobile).

[Janine6]

Oh, and thanks for the tip re shampoo... I'm dying to wash my hair but will wait a little longer now to be on the safe side.

[simekj]

Hi Janine

Yes leakage of fluid is normal.  Mine did not come out of the ear but rather into my sinuses and down the nose or throat. I kind of encouraged it too by tilting head etc so as to get as much out as i could then the rest had to come out naturally and eventually. When 'injury' has occurred the body creates fluid around the wound area to protect it and this is why you have a 'golf ball' feeling as well as something solid in there.  As the fluid leaks out the swelling goes down.  It does down reasonably quickly - eg  three days to one week and people don't notice it, but in fact the swelling keeps going down.  I feel my implants in my head and I realise that it must have been swollen for one month as I can now notice the difference compared to one or two weeks post surgery but it felt fine back then and I thought the swelling had actually gone down then.  Cheers

Karen

[Janine6]

Thanks Karen, that's reassuring and makes sense now. I'd been trying to avoid tilting my head in the hope that the wound would dry up quicker - more liquid escapes at night time when I lie down so I've been trying to sleep upright. However, I'll now be 'tilting away' if this helps with drainage!

[Adam]

Janine, I had a little leakage as well. no much but it was there. took a a few days to settle down. Luckily no issues with infection or anything.

[Ivana Marinac]

Hello people,

 

drainage does not mean it is infected (op place is cleaning itself) - here in my country we do not use hidrogen a lot because it damages skin more than for instance Octenisept:

http://www.drugs.com/international/octenisept.html

 

much better thing than hidrogen. I use hidrogen when I have in practice a badly infected wound although from the experience of m9icrobiologists - Octenisept is better.

[zeezai]

When i go to the surgeon's clinic for check up, he uses hydrogen peroxide to clean the wound that's why i'm also using it at home. After that, I use povidone-iodine antiseptic. I don't know if we have octenisept here. I'll ask the pharmacies next time.

 

I Didn't experience any leaking on my ear canal but right after surgery until about 3 days, there was a clear drainage from my nose. I just thought it was from general anesthesia. Didn't bother me much and it went away on its own.

 

Regarding the swelling, mine was about 2 weeks. Still a bit tender on the wound area now and the implant isn't noticeable at allbut i can feel it when i run my hand on my scalp a little above the ear.

[Janine6]

Interesting to hear what you have been advised to clean your wounds with. I won't see my surgeon until 4 weeks post op and he has advised me to put nothing on the wound. I have dissolvable stitches which are currently covered in tape and he said this can be removed after 1 week and then I can shower/bath as normal.

[zeezai]

MIne used to have tapes on and absorbable tapes which the dr. Took out after two weeks. After seeing the infected area around the stitches, he took them out.

[bigguns]

Hi folks!

 

Seems there is a small explosion of resently surgery.   I´m the only one in here with atresia?

I´m also really impatient to hear about what you have to say about the soundquality later.

Because i´m not satisfied with mine.

 

/Fredrik

[zeezai]

I don't have atresia. Mine's probably from enlarged canals on my left ear (accdg. To ct scans) or from mumps i got when i was a kid. I'm not really sure. I haven't used any HAs until i was in high school coz the hearing loss didn't bother me until that time.

 

WEnt to the dr.'s clinic yesterday. He took out another piece of the suture that was used in closing up the wound. He's determined that my body is rejecting the Vicryl brand of absorbable sutures that's why it keeps spitting it out.

[bigguns]

Hi Zee!

 

Doesn´t sound too nice, I´ll hope for you, it heal ok.

 

And no I did´n have any healing problem at all, thank god for that.

 

My issue is now and has been fo at too long time, the distortion in voices from other people.

 

/Fredrik

[zeezai]

Distorted like you can't understand the voices? When i had the trial switch on, i could understand 95-100% but the voices/sounds i heard had a digital-like quality it. It's as if i was listening to a robot talking. Is that what you mean?

[Matt]

Current practice says normal saline is the best solution to clean wounds. I was involved in a study using potable tap water v's saline to see if there was any difference in infection rates. The report has not been finished yet but anecdotal experience suggests there is little difference.

There are specialised wound cleansing solutions such as Prontosan which have been designed to clean dirty and infected wounds.

Hydrogen peroxide is a bit old fashioned these days but still has a following.

[bigguns]

To Zee!

 

Well yes, I understand, but as long as I have a Cochlear BaHa with headband that performes better sound quality in voices, I will not be satisfied with the Amade´. But remermber, I´m only talking about comparing voices here.  The surrounding dynamiq sounds outperformes the BaHa with lightyears. BUT under 400 hz, there is nothing.

 

/Fredrik

 

[simekj]

Hi Fredrik

I have had problems with sound distortion in my right CI. My left one is fine. Both Med-El and implanted 5th march and switched on 26th March 2013.  It's sort of a double echo or what I call a squiggle or warble.  It's bit like tuning a radio station back and forth fast but not on the actual station.  Not static though.  As my brain sorts them they get less distorted it seems but adjustments to mapping also have some influence on minimizing them.  My problems seem to be in the soft high frequencies probably because i have not ever had the neurons trained to deal with it? or the CI electrodes are not transmitting the information correctly at the mo.  The other frequencies seem alright.  I have only had one readjustment post switchon so I am hoping the one next week will help.  I am hoping the audiologist will experiment a bit so we can problem solve it.  They just give a standard answer, the brain will sort it.  in other words they don't know. 

One thing I have been trying to do to sort it a bit is to focus on one sound and determine myself/brain to figure it out.  eg boiling jug was very 'squiggly' so i stared at it and tried to see if my brain could differentiate the different components of the squiggle.  Eventually it sorted out the bubbling sound from the deeper sound and then it was fine.  now i hear a boiling jug.  If there are too many distortions, it could be that there is too much information coming at once and the brain is struggling to sort it all out.  eg shopping mall or music.  or it could be the mapping isn't right and some frequencies are too loud compared to others?  I still struggle with cars passing on a road when outside walking. And music.

Not sure if this is helpful for you or not. Only the client can hear what they hear and then how does someone explain what they have never heard before??

Cheers

Karen

[bigguns]

Hi Karen!

 

That was very well spoken of you. I have a 6 moth test next week and also told my audiologist I will have adjustment time.

We'll see after the meeting how it feels when.  One thing I´m sure of, for me, it´s  not a brain  issue.

 

 

I'm not too familiar with your hearing problems but have you tried to switch left and right reciver? Is the problem still on left side then?

Maybe that was a stupid question but that was the first I thought of in your case.

 

/Fredrik

 

 

[zeezai]

Hi Karen.

 

It was ok to switch on after just 3 weeks? How did your doctor determine that it was time to switch on? I've been asking my surgeon and audi when the switch on will be and they haven't given me specific answers. They just keep asking if the wound is completely healed and if there wasn't anymore swelling on the implant site.

[simekj]

Hi Fredrik and Zee

If I switch the left and right processors they do not work so I cannot even try that option. They are very specifically tuned to the one implant even the audiologist was surprised but then again bilateral implantees are a rarity here at the moment as the govt only fund one. I turned the volume up on one processor and got rid of some squiggles....

 

Zee my wounds healed reasonably quickly so it was fine.  I didn't have much choice as they were booked out and I specified I needed it done just prior to Easter.  Another client had her switch on at the same time but hers was quite sore.  She was unilaterally implanted so she got an extension cord and they put the processor on the other ear while the wound healed.  Was fine.  She just had to tilt her head the other way.  My ears and head were still swollen and have since come down to normal but it was fine for me at 3 weeks instead of 4 weeks.  I also used a cream to heal and soothe the wounds and speed up healing as well as prayer.  Besides three weeks of silence was enough for me..... Everyone is different and have different needs.

K

[zeezai]

JUst an update. I googled suture allergies and found out it rarely happens but what i did find useful is that there is such a thing called suture reaction wherein the body reacts to the vicryl and sees it as a foreign body which then tries to push it out, sometimes looking like it's spitting out the sutures. It occurs on the 2nd week after operation. When the sutures are out, the body begins to heal normally.

 

This exactly what happened to me. I should not use vicryl sutures in the future.

[Adam]

pretty interesting, thanks for sharing

[Matt]

 

JUst an update. I googled suture allergies and found out it rarely happens but what i did find useful is that there is such a thing called suture reaction wherein the body reacts to the vicryl and sees it as a foreign body which then tries to push it out, sometimes looking like it's spitting out the sutures. It occurs on the 2nd week after operation. When the sutures are out, the body begins to heal normally.

 

This exactly what happened to me. I should not use vicryl sutures in the future.

This is quite a common reaction especially if the sutures or surgical clips are left insitu for longer than normal (over a week).

It often looks like red circles around each entry point and is sometimes mistaken for wound infection.