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Vulnus
Running water and a moist dressing — and a gaping wound stitched or glued within a few hours.
Also known as: wound · cut · graze · laceration · bite wound · wound healing · wound infection
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
A fresh wound follows a clear order: first stop the bleeding with a clean cloth and firm pressure for several minutes, raising the limb if possible. Only then clean it, with plenty of running lukewarm tap water. Coarse dirt and loose foreign material get rinsed out; deeply embedded objects, glass or splinters stay where they are and are removed by a professional. If a wound gapes, goes deeper than the skin, or its edges do not meet by themselves, it will be stitched, glued or stapled — the window is roughly six hours, longer on the well-supplied face. After that it heals better moist than in the air: a wound under a suitable dressing heals faster and scars less than one left to dry out. Signs of infection are spreading redness, warmth, swelling, a red streak running towards the body, fever, pus and throbbing pain — then see a doctor the same day. Bites from people or animals and deep puncture wounds always need looking at, even when they seem small. And: no home remedies in open wounds, no flour, no oil, no powder, no toothpaste.
Clean cloth, firm pressure for several minutes, limb raised. Then plenty of running lukewarm water over the wound.
About six hours, longer on the face. Coming the next day often means no stitches and a wider scar.
A suitable dressing, changed regularly, heals faster and scars finer than a crust left in the open.
Flour, oil, butter, powder, toothpaste or spirits contaminate the wound and make assessment harder.
Spreading redness, warmth, a red streak, fever, pus, throbbing pain: same-day medical assessment.
They are usually left open, irrigated, sometimes given antibiotics. After an animal bite abroad, rabies must be considered too.
Enough protein, good blood sugar, stopping smoking, no picking at scabs, and shielding a young scar from sun for a year.
Rinse with running lukewarm water, dab dry and cover with a suitable dressing — do not let it dry in the air.
Wash hands and tweezers, pull the splinter out in the same direction it went in, then clean and cover.
The female burrows under the skin, usually at the nail edge. It is removed sterilely, then the site is cared for like a small wound and tetanus protection is checked.
A painless ulcer at a bite site that grows over weeks and will not heal, after a journey to the Mediterranean or the tropics: that is not a question of wound care.
A moist dressing closes the skin faster than drying in the air — one of the clearest findings in wound care. Iodine and hydrogen peroxide kill germs and damage the new cells along with them; they are meant for the first cleaning, not for healing. Antibiotic ointments are of no benefit on clean wounds. What counts: rinse thoroughly, cover moist, and with deeper wounds the question of tetanus — the last booster should be no more than ten years ago.
A clean cut is stitched within six hours, on the face up to twenty-four — after that the risk of infection rises and the wound is left open. Stitches come out on the face after four to six days, on the trunk after seven to ten, at joints and on legs after ten to fourteen. The wound has about twenty per cent of its old strength at three weeks and about eighty at three months — it never gets more. The scar fades over six to eighteen months.
If honey, then only medical wound honey from the pharmacy: thinly on the cleaned wound or on the dressing, a bandage over it, changed every one to two days.
If the edges do not meet by themselves or fat is visible, it needs stitching or glueing — ideally within a few hours.
Still bleeding after ten minutes of firm pressure, or spurting with the heartbeat: keep pressing and call 144.
Glass, metal, wood splinters, ground-in grit: whatever does not rinse out must be removed properly.
Spreading redness, warmth, pus, throbbing pain, fever and a red streak towards the body — do not wait until tomorrow.
Small opening, deep tract, plenty of germs: cat bites to the hand and nails through the foot are routinely underestimated.
A finger that will not bend or a numb patch suggests tendon or nerve — that needs prompt assessment.
The most important value with a wound that will not heal. A raised sugar slows every phase of healing and encourages infections.
Healing needs oxygen in the tissue. Anaemia slows it measurably and is often overlooked with chronic wounds.
Shows whether enough protein is available. In older people with poor wound healing this is more often the explanation than the dressing.
Rises with an infection of the wound. Together with spreading redness, warmth and fever that belongs looked at quickly.
Skin and lining renew themselves quickly and need zinc for it. With places that heal badly, cracked corners of the mouth and frequent skin infections a lack is a serious possibility.
Without vitamin C no stable collagen forms — the wound closes but holds less well. With a very one-sided diet, smoking and alcohol the intake is often tighter than assumed.
Steers the horn-forming of the skin. Too little makes it rough and dry, too much over longer periods harms liver and bone — and in pregnancy a strict upper limit applies.
Every healing needs building material. Anyone eating little during an illness loses exactly that — a sufficient amount spread across the day belongs to the treatment.
Without vitamin C no load-bearing collagen forms — with scurvy old scars break open again. 100–200 mg a day covers the need; beyond the requirement nothing heals faster.
With a proven deficiency wounds heal measurably more slowly, and topping up reverses that. Without a deficiency no speeding is shown — above 40 mg a day over weeks it disturbs copper uptake.
New tissue is made of protein. With larger wounds and pressure sores 1.2–1.5 g per kilogram a day is reckoned with — with reduced kidney function that calculation does not apply.
Cortisone slows every step of wound healing — inflammation, new vessel formation, collagen building. On standing therapy wounds heal measurably more slowly, and the stitching holds less. That belongs discussed before a planned operation.
High sugar weakens the defence cells in the wound and the small vessels that supply them. This is why the sugar value in the days around an operation decides more about healing than almost anything else.
Growth hormone and IGF-1 drive the building of new tissue. Both fall with protein shortage and with age — that is part of the explanation why wounds take longer in older people.
A wound needs building material. 1.2–1.5 g protein per kg a day, vitamin C for collagen cross-linking and zinc with a proven deficiency is the studied frame — in good nutritional state extra brings nothing.
High sugar values slow the defence cells in the wound. In diabetes control is therefore the most effective contribution to healing — measurable over weeks.
The red oil from the flowers is the classic application for healing skin and scars.