What is bed sore? Bed sore is known as a phenomenon of people suffering from bedridden condition like coma, paralysis. Imagine you have to sit 8 hours for work, how tired, aches and pains your buttocks are. With the disabled patients, it will be an extreme nightmare and the body areas endured by pressure such as buttocks, back, shoulder blades become pressure ulcer and also infection on the surface of skin.
What are the main causes of bed sore? The common point between influenced subjects is staying the same position in a long time. Undue friction between body surface and bed along with pressure caused by gravity are the main reason of bed sores.
Pay more attention if one person is under these conditions
• Using corticosteroid drugs, which are steroid anti- inflammatory drugs. Beside anti- inflammation, corticosteroid decreases metabolism in the body and makes blood glucose higher than normal. Continuous using corticoid may lead to diabetes- cause bed sores.
• Consciousness lessening and excretion incontinence that the patient is unable to control fecal and urinary excretion
• Low nutrition, dehydration and smoking
How can you realize bed sore?
The stages of bed sore are decided as how severity bed sore is.
• The earliest stage is when you feel the itchy and tender feeling in identified area. And if you press the area with your finger and see it no white, this person is suffering from slight bed sore. But in case the person has darker skin instead of white or pale skin, the patch become red, blue or even purple when you press, so it is not easy to discover bed sore if the skin tone is not white enough. The skin temperature is quite different from other area, it might be cold, warm.
• The patch then develops and becomes blister or scratch. However, the development has not reached through thickness of skin. You can find the change of red discoloration, some oozing. After that, the ulcer invades skin insider.
• And the last stage, if there no treatment, the ulcer develops until joint, muscle and even bone.
In that case the ulcer is in high risk of infection, especially in hip ulcer or the surroundings around genital areas, feces and urine make conditions worse and hard for treatment. Bad smell, drainage, fever are severe signs of bed sore.
What are the treatments of bed sore?
The best way to prevent bed sore is mobility. Moving not only helps circulation through body but also avoid constant pressure on the body. But with bedridden or disabled patients, they can’t do it themselves, ask for help to change position every hour. Moreover, exercise for the range of motion is really useful to prevent contracture, improve circulation in impacted area. As the patient go to sleep, use the pulling sheet to change position in bed or lift the bed over 30 degrees to reduce the shearing force.
But there are home remedies for bed sore that we would like to recommend you in this articles which are really useful.
- Saline water
Clean bed sore area can avoid mostly infection and inflammation. It is one of the most useful and simple way to clean and improve healing process. Mix water with pour salt or use saline water (NaCl 0.9%) to clean the sore and let it cool. Apply it twice a day for better result - Massage.
Bed sore is the consequence of slow circulation from affected area. So massage really helps in this case to promote the healing and prevent more severe ulcer. Use the essential oil if the sore is not open sore. Essential oils are good at anti- inflammation and relaxation. Coconut oil, lavender oil and olive oil are choices for you to relax and improve circulation at the same time. Using essential oils also keep the affected area moist and avoid damage from undue pressure.
Warm up some drops of essential oil first then gently massage area for your skin to absorb oil fluently. - Baby powder
The baby holds diaper almost all day. This can lead to ulceration. And that’s when baby powder shows its ability. Keep the affected area dry from sweat is another way to prevent infection. Just apply powder after cleaning the sores twice a day and see how it works. - Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera gel is famous for its healing capacity. If the patient doesn’t show any allergy to gel, apply pour gel directly on the sore to keep skin moist and smooth. It also helps cool down the affected area and relieve pain, itchy feeling caused by bed sore.
Extract the gel from aloe vera leaf and apply it on bed sore. Rub skin in 3 minutes then let it dry. Finally, wipe the gel with wet towel. - Turmeric
Turmeric is famous for its healing, anti- septic, anti- inflammation properties. It is recommended as the safest and most effective way for bed sore treatment. Clean the sore first and cover the wound with turmeric powder or turmeric slides. Repeat twice a day for the best result. - Honey
Honey is a natural anti- inflammation property. That’s why it is able to soothe mild bed sore effectively. The pain and itching are also reduced with honey as well as healing process.
Apply honey on skin and cover it with bandage. Follow it twice or three times a day helps patients deal with pain and bed sore efficiently.