So I had a bad staphylococcus aureus infection in my leg. The doctor poked a hole (in the leg) to
TMI WARNING
get the pus out and then put in a wick to keep the hole open. Now, a week later, he says that I don’t need to use the wick anymore. Instead, use a “wet to dry” bandage: take some gauze, moisten it in sterile water, put a corner of the gauze in the hole in your leg, put a square of dry gauze on top, and tape. Change daily.
I trot off to the pharmacy just a few steps away - which is not a small pharmacy. Sterile water? Sorry, don’t have any. How about some saline solution?
I go back to the doctor. The lady behind the desk (a nurse maybe? I’m not sure) says that saline water will be an acceptable substitute. I go back to the pharmacy, limping heavily so that people will feel sorry for me. They have a small bottle of saline water for irrigation, cost US$11. The pharmacist (she looks like a young high school student to me, but that’s because I’m old) suggests dissolving epsom salts in water, it will work just as well and it’s a lot cheaper. “A lot cheaper” being words that soothe my Swiss soul. I buy the epsom salts and just to be sure go back to the doctor’s office. The lady behind the desk says that if the pharmacist says it’s OK, then use epsom salts dissolved in water instead.
Medical question - is this the straight dope? Or do I need to go hunt down some sterile water? I could put a call in to the doctor to be sure but I hate to bother him for something trivial.
I am not your doctor, and in any case you are not a dog. You could always boil the water first (thus practically achieving “sterile water”). The wound is open and draining as it is, I would have no problem with you using epsom salts/water unless the original problem were due to some horrible immune system problem.
Well, “Sterile Water USP” lacks the mineral content that boiled tap water would have. In all honesty, in your situation I wouldn’t even bother to boil the water.
If you have “city water,” my thought would be that there is supposedly little to no bacteria there anyway. One of the things added (chloramine, I believe, in many places) is meant to kill bacteria and continue doing so while the water travels to its destination. When something goes wrong at the water treatment plant and bacteria finds its way in, they usually make public announcements to stop drinking the water. But I guess boiling it can’t hurt, provided you don’t boil it so much that you significantly increase the concentration of dissolved solids.
Is there a difference between this and what your doctor meant, I wonder; i.e. does sterile=no bacteria?
Distilled water is not sterile. It is just pure water, with nothing (or as close to nothing as practical) dissolved in it.
What about the sterile saline packaged for contact lens wearers? Same thing?
Not cheap enough. Epsom salts are cheaper. That is unless you have an industrial source I guess.
One time my parents told me to soak a wound in salt. I promptly emptied an entire bottle of sodium chloride into a gallon and made the world most expensive salt bath. They needed to be more specific when they said salt.
It’s been said already, but to confirm, when the doctor told me to get sterile water I specifically asked about distilled water and he said no, not distilled water, sterile water.
P.S. Some more info - he said there was a bit of “dead tissue” on the sides of the hole. So I asked him if I could use maggots to get rid of it like they do in Britain (according to Scientific American). He said fine by him as long as I could find some “sterile maggots”. I didn’t ask at the pharmacy if they had any of those.
Get a bottle of the saline solution sold for contact lens users – it should cost much less than that.
And that’s what we keep in our barn First-Aid kit for us in cleaning wounds. Our Veterinarian advised this – said it was effective, cheap, and would last for a long time as long as it was unopened.
Then what the heck were my parents complaining about? I didn’t use rock salt or anything I used iodized table salt. Also, my parents didn’t say anything about concentration so I just dumped a lot in.
It’s an open wound. Unless you are seriously immunosuppressed, I assert that there is virtually no difference in this case between tap and sterile water. Is the interior of the wound sterile? I believe your MD is covering his arse. I would do the same in his circumstance.
(Apologies for my my stridence, posting trashed will do
that to ya.)
Thanks everybody. Since I’m paranoid about making a mistake, I guess my plan right now would be to buy some distilled water, boil it, throw some epsom salts in there (I’ve already bought that so why not use it), and use that concoction! Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with some medical breakthrough.
vetbridge - no, I’m not seriously immunodepressed. Or if I were, I’m sure I would have noticed before now.
Water will not draw anything out by osmosis – it will, in fact, be drawn in, as water is the only thing that osmoses. Saline is better, as it will draw excess fluid out of the wound, and I’ve always preferred to rinse my own wounds with higher-than-normal saline or epsom salt.
As for answers above, most contact lens solutions are sterile preserved – they used to use thimerosal, but various other preservatives have mostly replaced it. Preservatives can be irritating to already-damaged tissue.
I’m kinda guessing that a purulent boil, while not at tremendous risk for infection, is already putting the immune system through its paces. If it’s available and not ruinously expensive, I’d stick with the sterile alternative.
Not a doctor, just a chemist with a biology degree.
Sterile water is occassionally sold for humidifiers.
Don’t know about it’s suitability for serious medical use, but should be good enough for irrigation.