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Healthy tissues from another part of a person’s body are used for skin grafting in cases where the body tissues have been damaged beyond the body’s natural ability to repair it. The skin from the donor site covers the original wound helps to reduce the chance of infection at the injured place. However by removing skin from a healthy part of the body, exposes this donor part to infection and allows for possibility of complications at the donor site. The healing process at this site may be long as it is an exposed part. This risk reduces as new skin grows naturally. The good news is that the complications at the skin graft donor site are rare but they are not totally absent that one can just ignore it.
Normally the patient is supplied enough dressing changes for the donor area. Pain medication and antibiotics are prescribed and recommended. Silvadene is a cream that is used as skin graft treatment of both the affected as well as the donor site. This cream prevents infection and speeds the development of new tissue. The surgeon will provide special sterile dressing strips to cover the donor area and the wound area. In the first few days (five at least) of a new wound treatment, the wound is washed with sterile saline even if the bandage is not removed. This keeps the area clean. Often metal staples are used to hold the tissue in place or small sutures may be used to cover the wound. If the wound is large, the dressing may be removed everyday and cleaned.
There is yet another method of skin graft treatment. Healing clay treatments are used after the skin graft donor area stops signs of bleeding. High quality healing clay, which has been properly prepared, is the best method. Though this is unconventional, some people use it for treatment of skin grafts. And records show that it has not failed. After the wound or the donor site is cleaned, some antibiotic (Silvadene) cream is applied and a thin dressing of gauze is used to cover the wound. The non-heated clay is put over the dressing. If it has been prepared properly it will not leak. Another layer of dressing covers this. The clay does not touch the wound. A special medical tape or netting is used to keep the clay pack in place, at least for one hour, which may be increased, in the later stages.
If the clay and the dressings have been done properly, after the clay pack is removed one will notice that the wound has greatly improved. The swelling, the bleeding, the inflammation will all come down, even though the clay has not touched the wound at all. The healing process can be increased by about sixty percent in this way. Even production of healthy skin will have increased. The staples can also be easily removed in this method. If the patient is satisfied, the clay treatment can continue till the graft is completely healed. This type of healing does not interfere with the standard treatment and does not expose the wound to any type of risk. |
