When you cut yourself, or fall down, the wound usually heals pretty fast.
But for some people these wounds don’t heal and extra treatment is needed before the situation gets very dangerous.
That happened to Tom Griffin earlier this year.
“If I’d let it go I could have lost a foot,” Griffin said.
Griffin is diabetic which means it’s harder for wounds to heal.
So when he stepped on a nail and it didn’t get better, he knew something was wrong.
“I went to the ER and got antibiotics and went home for a couple of days,” explained Griffin. “But it kept getting redder and the infection started streaking up my leg and it was getting dangerous.”
“If you have a non-healing wound for 4-6 weeks, your chances of getting better go down 20%,” said Dr. Jesus Hidalgo.
Dr. Hidalgo is a doctor at the Covenant Center for Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine and says stories like what happened to Griffin are very common.
“You have patients who have had open wounds for months or even years,” Dr. Hidalgo explained.
Griffin got more antibiotics to treat the infection, and then started getting hyperbaric treatments at the Wound Care Center.
These treatments put extra oxygen in your body, helping it heal.
“With a non healing wound it increases the oxygen levels so it will help release growth factors like tissue growth factor from the bone marrow,” explained Dr. Hidalgo. “He’s doing well and we were able to save his foot and avoid problems that come with an amputation with the lower extremities.”
5 months since Griffin stepped on the nail, he is back to normal and is thankful he went in to get the help he needed.
“I’m feeling good, I can run around and it doesn’t hurt,” said Griffin “I would say if you’re diabetic or elderly if you get a wound go have someone check it out.”
