I don’t wish ulcers upon anyone! They are painful, interfere with daily activities and take months to heal.Sometime between January and March 2004 I had many mosquito bites on my left ankle from wearing nothing on my feet, had a couple bites on my right foot too. In that time I had noticed that one bite on the side of my left ankle must have got infected and had a small oval scab over it.
Near the end of April the scab looked bigger and was getting sore and I couldn’t understand why, as I thought it was a healing scab. Few day’s later the scab had a red ring around it and the scab had spread over my Achilles tendon scar.
I was at the doctor’s picking up a prescription, while I was there I asked my nurse to take a look at it. The nurse said it was an ulcer, and I asked her what she meant. After finding out, she said I would have to get a dressing put on it, to ease the scab off to see what damage the ulcer has done and how deep it was. I kind of freaked out a bit as I didn’t want to find out how deep it was. My doctor did not come and see it, the nurse informed my doctor, and he asked her to organize the district nurses to come out twice a week to dress it. I was not given antibiotics at the time.
A week or two later the district nurse came over and talked to me about the history of it and how I got it and did the dressing. She arranged to get a district nurse out to see me twice a week. The scab eventually came off and the ulcer looked deep and I was in a bit of pain. I was taking Neurofen which my doctor said was OK to take for the pain.
I had not just one district nurse, but almost a different nurse each visit. This was hard as they hadn’t seen how the ulcer was before and what was being done, they just went by what was written in my chart. There was no continuity.
In September I developed an infection, this time I had two heavy infections in my ulcer called Pseudamonas and Staphylococcus A. These infections had given me two more ulcers, on the side of my ankle and my skin had broken down too. My skin and ulcers were being treated with many medical dressings, sometimes the ulcers would start looking good, then a different dressing and I am back to square one. My doctor had looked at the swab results and put me on antibiotics which I reacted too so I had to ring my doctor for something different, My Mum rushed up to the doctor’s to get the antibiotics as I needed them fast and I was too sick to leave the house. I reacted to these too and was quite sick for two weeks while taking them. I had to elevate my leg as much as I could as my leg was very swollen and at times felt like it was going to explode. I said to my doctor that I need more pain killers as I had finished a bottle of 96 Neurophen capsules. As the pain was still there and getting worse I was given Paracetamol but to take it only when needed.
Over this time the pain at night got so extreme I was crying in pain, having to sit up with my legs hanging off the edge of the bed due to the pain and pressure of the oedema in my feet and legs. I also found it very painful with the pressure of my ulcers against the mattress. There were times I wanted morphine or something stronger for the pain. I dreaded going to bed at night, knowing how much pain I was going to be in. This went on for three weeks to the point I couldn’t take it anymore. Paracetamol didn’t work so I rang back and I was given Codalgin which helped a bit.
My brother luckily had finished work for a few weeks and could come and stay with me and sort something out to reduce the pain at night. He put pillows under my leg so there was nothing against the ulcers and got up in the middle of the night a few times to recorrect the pillows and get my leg in a comfy position. After the first two nights, I was managing to get some sleep and having less pain, it felt good.
The ulcers were not healing, my skin was almost raw, was red, sore, swollen and still infected with Pseudamonas. My Mum had arranged a private appointment with a Wound Care Consultant. We discussed why the ulcers were not healing, what treatment options I had. I made my decision to get help from her. I needed to change my doctor to one in the same IPO as the wound care specialist nurse so the cost of dressings would be covered. The following week I went to the Medical Centre and the Wound Consultant told me the treatment plan. I was to have compression bandages done every day for two weeks to get the oedema down plus full elevation of my leg. The plan of attack was to get the oedema down, then treat the infection, then treat the ulcers. Two weeks later my leg oedema had gone down almost back to normal size and the infection was starting to get under control. The infection was treated with Iodosorb cream which needed changing daily. Four weeks later my ulcers were under control and healing was showing. After having nine months of treatment from the district nurses to 4 weeks of treatment with success is a huge improvement.
I developed an ulcer on my right leg near the ankle as I had banged my leg on my wheelchair and had some pressure there too, while the left leg ulcers were healing. We treated the new ulcer with Iodosorb and a batch of antibiotics for a while as I had a couple small infections of pseudomonas. I was using a compression stocking on my other leg now while skin was healing, so we started using a compression stocking on my right leg too as there was a little oedema there too. This took a couple months to heal and did in time for me to go to Australia in April 2005.
I am wearing compression stockings every day now on both legs to help the skin heal back to normal, this will take 12 months. Wearing the stockings will also keep away any oedema and help circulation. Ulcers and pressure sores are similar so I have to watch out for pressure on my legs too. Be aware of any scabs, pressure sores and red sore areas as you don’t want to deal with what I had to go through, with a lot of pain and exhaustion.
Ulcer Being treated by District Nurse: note swelling of leg
Ulcer's being treated by Wound Care Consultant
Leg in Compression Bandages
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