Treating Leg Ulcers With Sugar

Symptoms Of Leg Ulcers

• that they are commonly found on the lower leg and ankle
• a sunken, asymmetrically shaped wound
• the edges of the ulcer are clearly defined from the surrounding skin
• the surrounding skin is intact, but inflamed
• the surrounding skin may be pigmented, hardened or calloused
• yellowish-white exudate
• varicose veins in the leg.

Leg Ulcer Charity Helping To Cure Leg Ulcers

Following on from his passion for making sure patients get the correct investigations and treatment for venous diseases, Mark founded the Leg Ulcer Charity . He and his team now give talks around the UK, and occasionally abroad, to try and spread the word as to how it is possible to cure leg ulcers using local anaesthetic endovenous surgery.

Tips To Prevent Ulcers

Thereâs a lot you can do to lower your chance of having ulcers in the first place:

Keep your blood sugar in check. Good blood sugar control is the single best way to prevent small cuts and sores from becoming ulcers. If you have trouble managing your blood sugar, tell your doctor. They can work with you to make changes to your medication and lifestyle that will keep your blood sugar from getting too high. Even if your blood sugar level is fairly steady, itâs still important to see your doctor regularly. Thatâs especially key if you have neuropathy, because you may not feel damage to your skin and tissue.

Check your skin every day, and pay special attention to your feet. Look for blisters, cuts, cracks, sores, redness, white spots or areas, thick , discoloration, or other changes. Donât rely on pain even feeling more warmth or cold than usual can be a sign that you have an open wound on your skin, and itâs possible that you may feel nothing at all.

Ulcers are most likely to form on the ball of your foot or the bottom of your big toe, so be sure to check your feet every night. If you notice a problem, or you arenât sure if somethingâs normal, call your doctor.

Donât smoke.Smoking damages your blood vessels, decreases blood flow, and slows healing. Those things raise your risk of ulcers and amputation.

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Getting A Specialist Vascular Referral

If you have venous hypertension / insufficiency, intervention to your veins might help with healing and stop your wound or sore from coming back. Sometimes varicose veins can be treated by laser therapy. But if you have peripheral arterial disease, you may require further investigations and the vascular team will be able to assess the need to improve the blood supply to your leg or whether your ulcer can be managed in other ways such as reduced / modified with compression.

Ask your nurse or GP for a referral to your local vascular team to talk about how their input might help you.

Cleaning And Dressing The Ulcer

The first step is to remove any debris or dead tissue from the ulcer and apply an appropriate dressing. This provides the best conditions for the ulcer to heal.

A simple non-sticky dressing will be used to dress your ulcer. This usually needs to be changed once a week.

Many people find they can manage cleaning and dressing their own ulcer under the supervision of a nurse.

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How To Help The Healing Process Along

To help the healing process along, follow these tips:

Do regular self-checks. Catching wounds early is the key to avoiding infections and complications. Make sure you do daily self-checks and look for new wounds, especially on your feet. Dont forget to check in between and under your toes.

Remove dead tissue. Necrosis and excess tissue often occur with diabetic wounds. This can promote bacteria and toxins and increase wound infection. It can also prevent you from being able to inspect the underlying tissue. Your doctor will often help you with the removal process.

Keep dressings fresh. Regularly changing dressings can help reduce bacteria and maintain appropriate moisture levels in the wound. Doctors often recommend special wound care dressings.

Keep pressure off the area. Pressure can cause wear and tear that damages the skin and leads to a deeper wound or ulcer.

If youre dealing with a foot wound, consider wearing white socks during the healing process. This will make it easier to see blood or other signs of drainage on your socks.

See your doctor if you experience any of the following:

• tingling
• persistent pain
• swelling

You should also see your doctor if your symptoms worsen or last longer than a week.

Treating An Infected Ulcer

An ulcer sometimes produces a large amount of discharge and becomes more painful. There may also be redness around the ulcer.

These symptoms and feeling unwell are signs of infection.

If your ulcer becomes infected, it should be cleaned and dressed as usual.

You should also elevate your leg most of the time. You’ll be prescribed a 7-day course of antibiotics.

The aim of antibiotic treatment is to clear the infection. But antibiotics do not heal ulcers and should only be used in short courses to treat infected ulcers.

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Treating Leg Ulcers At Home

Ulcers on the leg can be very painful. Treating them at home can help reduce healing time and discomfort. Itâs very important to keep the wound clean, bandaged, and dry. This helps to curb the risk of infection given the extended healing time. Following your physicianâs directives for changing the bandages can help aid in healing.

Patients should be careful to properly maintain bandaged leg ulcers. If the skin around the wound gets too wet, this can cause the ulcer to expand into these healthy tissues. Expansion of these painful wounds may require more involved treatment protocols.

Wearing compression socks daily can help support lower extremity blood circulation, speeding up the healing process. The compression can also help reduce pain and swelling. Keeping active and elevating the ulcer above the heart can also aid in healing because it promotes good circulation.

One out of twenty diabetes patients experience neuropathic ulcers each year. Neuropathic ulcers call for even more treatment interventions to encourage healing. Since they are most often caused by uncontrolled blood sugar, adhering to a diabetes maintenance plan is key. These ulcers are frequently located on the foot instead of the lower leg. As a result, avoiding pressure on the wound requires that the patient avoid walking and other activity unless absolutely necessary.

What Should I Do At My Appointment

Remember to remove any nail polish from your toenails before your appointment.

When you see the nurse or doctor, they should:

• Ask about your symptoms and how long you have had problems
• Examine your lower legs
• Do a simple test called a Doppler Ultrasound. This test compares blood flow in your ankle with that in your arm to find out if there are arterial blood flow problems in your lower leg. You may have to come back to have your Doppler test on another day or at another clinic.
• You may also be offered some other tests to check for other health problems that can affect your legs such as diabetes and anaemia.

You may hear different words to describe your wound such as ulcer, leg ulcer, sore, laceration, chronic wound and maybe others. Ask your nurse to explain their choice of word and what this may mean for you.

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High Blood Sugar Levels

Your blood sugar level is the main factor in how quickly your wound will heal.

When your blood sugar level is higher than normal, it:

• prevents nutrients and oxygen from energizing cells
• prevents your immune system from functioning efficiently
• increases inflammation in the bodys cells

These effects slow down wound healing.

What Causes Leg Ulcers

Some of the most common diseases that lead to the formation of ulcers on your legs include:

• Venous Disease: This is one of the most common underlying causes of leg ulcers. It accounts for about 80% of cases of ulcers in the leg. Venous disease is usually a result of faulty valves in the veins. When the veins fail to push blood towards the heart, it flows back into the legs, eventually causing ulcers.

• Arterial Disease: Another disease that triggers leg ulcers is arterial disease. This accounts for 15% of leg ulcers and is a result of blocked arteries in the leg that inhibits blood flow to the underlying tissues.

• Other Medical Conditions: Leg ulcers can also be formed due to medical conditions like diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis.

So, how do you know if you have developed leg ulcers? Look out for the signs and symptoms mentioned below.

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Bread And Baking Soda

I have a new leg uler which developed after a bleed. It is on my interior ankle. Extremely painful. Can feel the swelling where the damage was done. I was told of a method using bread, bicarbonate of soda on the bread and water which makes the paste bubble. Does anyone know of this method. Surelly there is some native bush remedy out there. Indigenous people have cures for all their needs which they have used for years. Modern wound clinics just put on a bandage and say see you nexst week. One year later you are still doing the same thing.

Some years ago I was given a radical idea to try. At the time I didn’t take any notes etc but it worked! I had 5 cellulitis ulcers on one leg and I was told to drink 1/4 cup of Colloidal Silver every 5 hours and spray my leg frequently with same. To do it over a 24 hour period. I did it and within 10 days I had only had the original ulcer left. Which hasn’t been oozy for years.

So in that time frame, I lost 4 ulcers that have never returned. In 2017, one of my 2 specialists told me to use potassium permanganate to wash my legs daily and use the amount of crystals that would barely fit on the edge of a matchstick… He told me it kills sepsis and pseudomonas. Other Dr was delighted and told me that before the arrival of penicillin, doctors used Condy’s Crystals as a wash for ulcers.

HoneyHoney

What Causes Ulcers On Old Peoples Legs

arterial leg ulcers caused by poor blood circulation in the arteries. diabetic leg ulcers caused by the high blood sugar associated with diabetes. vasculitic leg ulcers associated with chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. traumatic leg ulcers caused by injury to the leg.

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Research And Evidence On Sugar’s Effectiveness

A growing collection of case studies from around the world supports the effectiveness of sugar in treating wounds and skin infections, including examples of successful sugar treatments on wounds resistant to antibiotics.

Here is a picture of a leg ulcer that conventional antibiotic treatment had not been able to help. In fact, it got worse over a couple of years. The second picture was taken after 30 days of treatment with sugar.

There is little funding available for research on sugar as a treatment and alternative to pharmaceutical antibiotics. Pharmaceutical companies cannot patent or control the use of sugar, so they have no incentive to fund any research. Just the opposite – sugar is a severe threat to many current skin antibiotics and all their pharmaceutical treatments for skin infections, ulcers and wounds. The pharmaceutical industry has a lot to lose if sugar takes its rightful place as a first treatment, so they try to discredit sugar and hide its use from doctors and hospitals.

Unfortunately for the pharmaceutical industry, several hospitals are getting dramatically improved outcomes at very low cost by using sugar as an approved and first treatment. The savings to both government and insurance company expenditures are impossible to ignore.

Murandu has also carried out clinical studies on 41 patients in Wolverhampton in the UK. He hasn’t yet published the trial results but has presented them at national and international conferences.

Treating Leg Ulcers In Houston

As vein specialists in the Houston area, were watching all the developments when it comes to treating leg ulcers. That way we can always deliver the most up-to-date care for our patients living with vein disease. Ready to explore your leg ulcer treatment options? Schedule an appointment with our specialists today!

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Management Of Systemic And Local Factors

Treatment of diabetic foot ulcers requires management of a number of systemic and local factors.

Precise diabetic control is, of course, vital, not only in achieving resolution of the current wound, but also in minimizing the risk of recurrence. Management of contributing systemic factors, such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, atherosclerotic heart disease, obesity, or renal insufficiency, is crucial. Management of arterial insufficiency, treatment of infection with appropriate antibiotics, offloading the area of the ulcer, and wound care are also essential.

References

What Are Leg Ulcers

Leg ulcers are sores that develop on broken or injured skin. Usually, they are more prominent right above the ankles, on the inner side of your legs.

Other than skin injuries, leg ulcers may also develop as a result of an underlying medical condition. The diseases which may lead to the development of leg ulcers are discussed briefly below.

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Granulated Sugar Treatment For Leg Ulcers: A Case Report

Moses Donald Murandu Senior lecturer, faculty of education, health and wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton, West Midlands

Moses Murandu highlights one patients story about the challenges of living for 13 years with leg ulcers and the radical improvements brought about by use of sugar for wound healing

The use of sugar in the treatment of wounds dates back to Ancient Egypt. This article begins with a summary of that history and, in the case study that follows, a patient describes his 13-year experience of living with leg ulcers. The patient explains the challenges these ulcers have brought to his day-to-day life and the particular problems he encountered with pain management. He discusses different approaches by doctors and district nurses to manage the ulcers and how, by chance, a newspaper article led to a meeting with a PhD student researching sugar and wound care a meeting that was to lead to a new lease of life for the patient.

Primary Health Care.26, 1, 26-29. doi: 10.7748/phc.26.1.26.s28

Correspondence

Tips And Precautions For Leg Ulcers

Attend to your skin ulcer in its early stages to avoid all kinds of complications.

Treat underlying conditions such as varicose veins, atherosclerosis and diabetes with utmost seriousness because all the three conditions slowly but surely take you towards your early death.

These are very serious conditions therefore any negligence will give you more trouble during the period you survive and reduces your lifespan. Most of these conditions can be significantly improved by lifestyle and dietary changes.

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Can Venous Leg Ulcers Be Prevented

There are several ways to help prevent developing a venous leg ulcer in people at risk.

These include:

• elevating your leg when possible
• stopping smoking if you smoke

These measures are particularly important if you previously had a leg ulcer.

This is because you’re at increased risk of having another one in the same leg within months or years.

Treating Venous Leg Ulcers

Compression therapy is a great first treatment for leg ulcers. The pressure placed on the veins in your lower legs can help get pooling blood out of the area, taking the pressure off your bulging veins and making the excess fluid less likely to contribute to existing ulcers, or to allow new ones to develop.

Now, compression therapy isnt perfect. If doctors apply too much pressure, it can cut off all circulation to your limbs. Not enough pressure, and the treatment will be wholly ineffective. And, since compression devices cover the area being treated, it can be tough for doctors to determine just how much pressure is being delivered to your veins.

The Tight Alright device is intended to work in conjunction with compression therapy. Using wireless technology, the device measures and monitors the amount of pressure being delivered to your leg beneath the compression bandages.

Of course, bandages also cover wounds. But removing them to check on healing can irritate your ulcer. To help combat this problem, researchers from the National University of Singapore developed a wearable sensor that detects wound temperature, pH, bacteria type and inflammatory factors. Best of all? It can do so in 15 minutes, wirelessly, so we can be sure your wound is healing well without disturbing the protective dressing.

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