A Patient's Guide to Surgical Wound Debridement

If you have a slow-healing foot, ankle, or leg wound, the first order of business is to prevent — or at least contain — infection.

Infections can be incredibly dangerous in slow-healing wounds, as they can spread and lead to gangrene and tissue death. Infections can also lead to amputation. As an example, of the 1.6 million diabetic foot ulcers that develop in Americans each year, about half will become infected and, of these, 20% end in amputation.

Now let’s walk this back in a more productive direction and explain how our team at Foot Ankle Leg Wound Care Orange County, which is led by double board-certified wound specialist Dr. Thomas Rambacher, fights back against infection. One of our most effective and powerful weapons is surgical debridement, which we explain here.

Why some wounds are more prone to infection

Under ideal circumstances, when you’re wounded, your body jumps into action and quickly cycles you through the four stages of healing, including:

Stasis: stopping bleeding
Inflammation: setting up the healing and regenerative environment
Cell proliferation: rebuilding damaged tissues
Remodeling: putting the final touches on the new skin

There are certain conditions that can stall this wound healing cascade, and when that happens, it allows harmful bacteria to invade and multiply, creating a spreading infection.

These conditions include chronic diseases that affect blood flow into your legs, which is critical to the healing process. Some of the more problematic chronic diseases in this regard are diabetes, which affects more than more than 40 million Americans, as well as other cardiovascular issues, such as peripheral artery disease (PAD) and chronic venous insufficiency (CVI).

The important role of surgical debridement in fighting infection

If you’ve developed an infection in your wound, our primary goal is to contain the infection and get wound healing going in a more productive direction. One of the best ways to do this is through surgical debridement, a procedure in which we remove infected and nonviable tissues from the wound.

The tissues we remove through surgical debridement have passed the point of no return, which means they can’t come back from the damage of the infection. As concerning, these tissues can promote the spread of infection as they harbor harmful bacteria, providing them a place to multiply.

Lastly, dead tissues around a wound can create a barrier against new skin growth, so debridement is a way to make space for healthier skin cell growth.

What happens during and after a surgical debridement

During a surgical debridement, we first make you comfortable with a local anesthetic or light sedation and then we clean out the wound and remove the infected and dead tissues.

Once we feel we’ve removed all the necessary tissues and thoroughly cleaned and disinfected the wound, we create a dressing that will further promote healing. We have a range of prescription wound care products that we use and, rest assured, we’ll give you complete instructions on how to manage these dressings.

As you can see, surgical debridement of infected foot, ankle, and lower leg wounds can make a significant difference in how your wound heals.

If you have more questions about surgical debridement or you’d like to explore whether you can benefit from the procedure, please call our office in Mission Viejo, California, at 949-832-6018 or request an appointment online today.