Had a 'procedure' a couple of weeks ago on my arm which involved a wide 2 inch incision. Everything was healing fine, stiches came out last week but then on saturday it became infected, very swollen, sore, oozing puss etc. Anyway off to the emergency saturday docs who put me on a course of anti biotics which seemed to have worked but I've now got 2 small holes in the scar that are constantly weeping a bloody juice sort of thing which i'm mopping up with a tissue every minute, so do I cover it with a dressing or leave it open to hopefully dry out?

ta

Put a dressing on it, so you dont pass your infection onto us mere plebs,that you may meet

In retrospect, I should have known better than to open this while eating my soup 🙁

yeah, keeping it moist has been shown in medical studies to provide ideal healin environment.
Keep an eye on that infection though

when it's moist though it just seems to go all mushy, i know i'm old school but is letting it dry out not the done thing these days, it does seem logical?

Cover it. However for an infected wound moist heealing is not the best – so a dry dressing such as melolin – that will absorb the goo would be my recoomendation

The moist wound healing thing is true – it works by allow the white blood cells to work on both sides of the wound. A dry wound means that the WBC on the outside die – but comes originally from the crimean war when people with wounds that couldn't be treated were wrapped in bandages and left " to stew in their own juice"

Adopted again in the last 30 yrs

what tJ said….thats what they did for my godawful hole after my hernia went wrong and I had to have all me belly button cut out….now that had about 3/4's of a pint of pus in it when it went and boy did it stink!

Go into the woods and find an old dying Birch tree, look out for a polipore fungus, cut a suitable sized piece from the underside of it and peel off the top layer(like a skin) place this over the wound and it will self adhere and absorb any oozing. to remove soak well.

LOL @ Warlock sharki ! ……… "Go into the woods and find an old dying Birch tree, look out for a polipore fungus" 😀

thanks folks, i'll put a dressing on.

sharki, shame it's dark but is that true?

Go back to the doc if it dont clear up after the antibiotics. The wound may heal over but underneath all sorts could be goin on, its called a sinus, have a look here http://www.pilonidal.org/pdfs/managing_wound_sinuses.pdf

My missus says put honey on it. She is a nurse, but she might be tricking.

I bet honey's good greatape ……. full of antibacterial and antiviral property I believe. Well bees wouldn't want all their hard work spoilt with bacterial, fungal, etc infections, would they ?

Curse my spelling, i meant polypore also known as razorstrop fungus due to another use of it.

Yes it can be used as a field dressing to seal the wound and prevent infection, though i'm unsure if it remains affective after prolonged use, i'd only use it to get me home.

Heard a story of it being used and when the patient got to hospital they'd never seen anything like it and just ripped it off, causing alot of pain as the healing process was already taking place.

I bet honey's good greatape ……. full of antibacterial and antiviral property I believe. Well bees wouldn't want all their hard work spoilt with bacterial, fungal, etc infections, would they ?

Well there you have it swisstony. Go and stick your arm in a bees nest and you'll be right as rain.

Yup – honey is good