Amputation Prevention: All About Our 3-Tiered Approach to Limb Preservation

Each year in the United States, about 150,000 Americans undergo lower extremity amputation and people with non-healing wounds account for most of this number.

The reality is even the smallest foot, ankle, or leg wound in certain populations can kick off a chain of events that ultimately leads to amputation. Whether the amputation is partial or it involves the entire lower leg, this unfortunate complication is life-altering and one that we want to help you avoid. In fact, our entire practice is dedicated to just that.

At Foot Ankle Leg Wound Care Orange County, board-certified podiatric surgeon Dr. Thomas Rambacher and the team have considerable experience helping people to preserve their limbs in the face of non-healing wounds. This experience has led us to a three-tiered foot and limb salvage protocol that has helped many of our patients to preserve their limbs, their mobility, and their overall wellness. Let’s take a look

1. Cleaning up your wound

One key to our foot and limb salvage approach is to treat the problem as early as possible. So, if you’re at risk — you’re one of the more than 38 million Americans who have diabetes or up to 12 million people who have peripheral artery disease (PAD), as examples — the moment you see a wound that's struggling in your lower limb, please come see us. Early intervention can really make a difference when it comes to avoiding amputation.

During this early intervention, we can use a combination of treatments to prevent infection from spreading and killing off healthy tissue, such as:

• Prescription wound care products
• Wound debridement during which we remove infected and dead tissues
• Antibiotics
• Tools that take the pressure off of the wound (walking boots, etc.)
• Negative pressure wound therapy

These early steps are designed to help your body to fight off infection and contain the problem before it spreads and invades healthy tissues.

2. Reconstructive surgery to promote healing

Next we need to get your wound on the right healing track, and how we go about this very much depends upon the extent of the foot or lower leg wound. Most of these options include reconstructive efforts that get the wound further along the healing cascade, including:

• Flap reconstruction
• Skin grafting
• Bone grafting
• External fixation

This list isn’t complete, but we want you to know that there are several procedures we can use to encourage healing and avoid serious skin and bone infections that lead to amputation.

3. Closely monitored recovery

Whichever reconstructive procedure we use for your diabetic foot ulcer or chronic lower limb wound, the aftercare is important and we’re with you every step of the way.

From managing dressings to relieving pressure on your wound, our goal is to make sure that we give your wound the support necessary to heal properly.

We also guide you on when you can start bearing weight on your lower limb and moving around more freely. 

Throughout this whole process, we monitor your progress very closely so that we can quickly step in if there’s a hurdle. Ultimately, we see you through to the end when you can, hopefully, regain full use of a healthy and intact lower limb.

If you want a team who leaves no stone unturned when it comes to amputation prevention, please call our office in Mission Viejo, California, at 949-832-6018 or request an appointment online today.