The Importance of Treating Nonhealing Wounds

When you sustain a wound, your body enlists help from many different systems and organs to rush blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the site to aid healing. Usually, a small wound takes a week or so to go from an open sore to a tissue-filled scar. But what if your body doesn’t — or can’t — heal that quickly?

At Heart Vascular & Leg Center, our expert team of board-certified wound care specialists treats all wounds, no matter their cause. They can help prevent infection while allowing your body to take the time it needs to heal. If you have a slow-healing wound, here’s what you need to do.

Causes of slow-healing wounds

One of the major causes of slow-healing wounds is diabetes. The high levels of blood glucose can, over time, damage nerves (neuropathy) and lead to poor blood circulation. That makes it difficult for blood and its healing factors to reach areas of the body affected by sores or wounds.

Without enough blood supply, wounds can remain open and unhealed for months, increasing the risk of:

• Fungal infections
• Bacterial infections
• Gangrene

If the wounds are on your feet, they can be particularly problematic. Left untreated, they increase the risk of amputation.

Another common cause is vein disease. The veins are conduits that allow blood to flow from the body back to the heart. The trouble is they have to move blood against the pull of gravity. The calf and thigh muscles squeeze the veins, forcing the blood forward, and tiny valves within the veins allow the blood to move only in the upward direction.

Unfortunately, the vein walls and the valves can sustain damage, often from high blood pressure or a build-up of waxy plaque that narrows the conduit. When this occurs, the valves don’t close fully, and the blood can backtrack along its path, pooling around the damaged area. If the vein is close to the surface of your skin, you’ll see a colored, ropy protrusion — a varicose vein.

The underlying condition, in this case, is called chronic venous insufficiency, and it can lead to later and more difficult-to-treat stages of vein disease, including:

• Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
• Edema (swelling)
• Venous stasis dermatitis (skin discoloration from broken blood vessels)
• Venous ulcers

Venous ulcers are open sores on the lower leg or ankle that heal slowly, get infected frequently, and can lead to lower-limb amputation, especially in people with diabetes. About 1% of Americans develop these wounds, which are more common as they age, especially in women.

Other causes of slow-healing wounds include:

• Atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)
• Blood clotting disorders
• Kidney failure
• Inflammatory diseases
• A history of smoking
• Genetics

Vein disease can become a chronic condition if not treated.

What to do if you have a slow-healing wound

Slow-healing wounds need medical attention. At Heart Vascular & Leg Center, we offer several treatment options.

Chronic disease management

If you have an underlying medical condition associated with slow-healing wounds, we may recommend healthy lifestyle changes or medication to improve your overall health and reduce the risk of future problems.

Debridement

We clean the wound and remove damaged or dead soft tissue for proper healing.

Saline mist therapy

A saline mist allows us to deliver low-frequency ultrasound waves to your wound, increasing the dilation of blood vessels and naturally stimulating wound healing.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy

We immerse you in pure oxygen, which stimulates wound healing.

Total contact cast (TCC) offloading

A customized cast helps us to relieve the pressure on your wounds, speeding up healing and alleviating pain. 

Advanced biologics

These skin substitutes allow your doctor to close over slow-healing wounds, reducing pain and accelerating healing.

Have you developed a wound that just won’t heal? Heart Vascular & Leg Center can help you with that. To get started, call our office at 661-443-5524 to schedule a consultation, or book online today.