Wet to dry dressings

RE: Wet to dry dressings

Gail Limond — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 15:48:00 GMT

I work for a charity practice and we use wet to dry dressings all the time! Very old fashioned method but very effective. Must be changed at least every day and most of the time this is usually over a short period of time before moving to a different type of dressing. Depending on how much discharge is coming from wound it can be painful to remove as is stuck to tissue. Most patients are sedated for the process.

RE: Wet to dry dressings

shelly jefferies — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 07:10:43 GMT

Good question.....wet to dry dressings are often deemed an old fashioned dressing, but they are actually very effective for wound debridement, however when they are used they are often done incorrectly.

They should be removed every 24 hours and 100% adequate pain relief is required and removal should be done under some form of sedation or general anaesthetic as they are painful to remove.

Basically as the saline soaked swab which is placed in contact with the wound bed drys out, it adheres to the wound bed, when removed it pulls off the tissue it is adhered to.

The way I would think about it is imagine the discomfort you feel when pulling a sticky plaster off of your hairy arm and multiply it by 100!!

RE: Wet to dry dressings

apache — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 21:26:03 GMT

Absolutely! I like them for very contaminated wounds, but these are dogs that are going to be sedated/GA'd anyway.

Usually remove and give good clean, suture where appropriate, cut away devitalised tissue.