Does anyone have a good method for changing a bandage right in that unreachable spot in the middle of your back, without getting someone else to do it?
I foolishly scheduled an excision of a nasty-looking mole about the size of a quarter during a period that my wife is away for a month visiting my sister. I utterly failed to do it myself this morning (partly because I was certain that we were well-provisioned with gauze, bandage, and tape - where in reality there isn’t a stitch of the stuff to be found.) I ended up leaving the house with one of my wife’s lactation pads taped to the inside of my shirt in approximately the right spot, and then asking a co-worker to do it up properly with supplies from the first aid kit.
My plan is to make a stop at the drug store before heading home, and to do my best to manage it myself tomorrow morning. (I think that c0-workers who are such spectacular people that not only can you imagine approaching them for this sort of favour but also do so obligingly and without hesitation ought to be rewarded - preferably in part by not asking them to look after your disgusting oozing wound again.)
I have a vague idea that I’ll use ludicrous lengths of tape to position the bandage, and then cut them as short as I can manage with only the two elbows. After applying polysporin with a spatula, I guess. Any better ideas? Ever tried this?
Make a gauze pad of the appropriate size.
Put tape around the edges, overlapping to whatever degree you feel necessary to make it stick.
Place the gauze/tape combo on the ground or a bed, sticky side up.
Lower yourself onto the pad.
Of course, this relies on being able to accurately position your body, but you should be able to get a pretty good sense of distance from your hips to the spot on your back, and by twisting and looking over your shoulder, you might be able to see it most of the way down, to make sure you’re properly aligned.
ETA: The bigger you make the pad, the easier it will be to make sure you’ve covered the spot, but you’ll use more gauze and tape.
I vote for long lengths of tape. And no, I can’t reach around to do stuff to the middle of my back, but my husband can reach his. I have seen him pop zits between his shoulder blades.
I think so far silly-long tape seems most manageable. I just want longer arms…
And of course said co-worker has already received a box of good chocolate, with a card that says “I’ve never seen a needlepoint sampler declare that ‘Tending Co-workers Oozing Wounds Is Its Own Reward,’ so, hey, look, chocolate!”
I’ll be one of those sad, lonely respondents. I had to deal with this exact situation several years ago. First I edged the gauze on four sides with tape. Then I was able to just barely get most of one side taped to my skin in the right spot. This required some contortion on my part, and I even used the wall or maybe the counter to twist around a little further and give myself a little more leverage. Then I’d gently press my back against the wall and get the rest of the gauze taped down. This really only works if you can reach some part of the dressing yourself though.
Set up the four side taped gauze with ointment in the middle. Tape it to a surface with a single loop of scotch tape, ointment side out. Hold a hand mirror to look at the gauze, back into gauze and gently weight shift till the tape on gauze sticks to you.
No, I was just without the use of my right arm for about 3 months (and limited use for several more after that) some years ago, and can commiserate with Larry about the difficulties in dressing wounds under difficult circumstances.
If you need to wash it first and haven’t used the shower - use a hand towel stretched between your hands to get at it with soap and water if needed. Then:
Make the pad with tape and ointment in the middle.
Hold hand-mirror in one hand, facing large mirror with your back
Use tongs to position the pad and tape with your other hand.
Press back against wall or door to get it all stuck in place.
Easy.
I had the same thing myself; an excised mole right between my shoulder blades. I can touch any part of my back with at least one hand, though, so it wasn’t really a big deal. I can still feel the scar, in fact.
Weirdly, although I can actually grab my hands together (fingers in an S-shape) behind my back when my left arm goes over my shoulder and my right arm comes up from beneath, when I reverse that I can only just barely touch my fingertips together.
What unreachable spot? I can easily clasp my hands behind my back (with one over and one under) and move them side-to-side, covering the whole back area. Not that it can’t be a bit awkward to get at the furthest spots, but no spot is unreachable. Maybe you should stretch more or get longer arms.
Also, like anything else, its all in the preparation. So, before you start, stretch. Reach & stretch, reach & stretch. When you have max flexibility nearing the point of near dislocation, that part is ready. Then yank the old one off fast, & slap the new one on to cover before your back starts to bleed too badly. Feel free to curse a blue streak; if there’s no one there to help you, then there’s no one there to complain.
And remember: in an emergency you can always slap on a clean sanitary napkin. Laugh all you want, but it’ll cover the wound, its sterile, and it will last until you can get more appropriate pharmacy supplies. I read somewhere that they were first meant as WW1 battlefield dressings, so its not way off base. If people give you heat about the sudden lump on your back, you can either feed them Marty Feldman lines or tell them that your Halloween costume is from The Puppet Masters.
We’re just a resourceful lot. When things go wrong, we improvise.
I had a cyst removed, somewhat closer to the inside of my left shoulder blade than the center of my back. I got a big square adhesive bandage (gauze pad with adhesive border), about 4"x4", loaded it up with antibiotic, and slapped it over the spot with my right hand. A bandage half that size would have worked, but with the larger bandage my aim didn’t need to be that good.
Well I got out of the house okay- a bit late but it’s done. Struggled with a few variants of above, but what ended up working was:
Fixed bandage to a shishkebab skewer and used that to position it. Used a wooden spoon to press the adhesive to my back, and then pulled the skewer out and patted the top down too.
Still feel very dumb for scheduling this the only time my wife isn’t here to help me out.
Re: sanitary pads- agree these are an excellent improvised first aid but usually reserved for when there’s a lot more bleeding. The lactation pads worked pretty good for keeping my shirt clean on the way to work yesterday.
Thanks for your suggestions- I think i’ll be able to leave on time tomorrow.
I was going to suggest something similar, but stick it with a very small loop of tape - to a doorframe or some such. You could even put a little loop of tape on your back, roughly where the bandage is (but outside your shirt) and back up to the door to hopefully leave a visual indicator of where the new bandage will need to be placed.
This reminds me of when Typo Knig had something similar going on and I had to go out of town to help my parents. Not sure HOW he managed, I should ask him. I was only gone for about 24 hours so it wasn’t a problem for long anyway.
