By: MICHAEL

MICHAEL — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:14:52 +0000

im T-5 Paraplegic..I also developed tunnel after wound vac was used ..its been 2yrs now im still working on healing the wound…i have not went back to my wound clinic as after i questioned the staff at the clinic about this tunnel appearing after the vac was applied they discharged me stating they felt like i was not getting proper treatment…

By: wanda

wanda — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:02:05 +0000

I had Tram Flap surgery in 5/08. The incision dehissed 10 days after surgery. I was hopsitalized for 7 days 7/08 because of severity of the wound. I commenced home nursing care and regular weekly visits to the hospital wound care center for several months. There was a decision by the attending physician to have me use the KCI Wound Vac in fall of “09. I had constant problems with the Vac. Two weeks after Vac therapy commenced I developed “Tunneling” in many areas of my torso. The Vac was continued for more than a month more at which time I hemmoraged at home. The home nurse saw me. I also visited the hospital and was treated but recieved no answer as to why all of this was happening to me. The Vac was discontinued. I continued as a patient at the Wound Care Center for several more months. This was an impersonal experience. I was seen for five minutes every Monday morning by the same physician. Some time after the Vac had been discontinued the same attending physician was wondering out loud what to do next regarding my treatment, he turned to the nurse and asked “Why haven’t we used the Vac.” She never answered him. She gave him “a look.” I realized I needed to find treatment elsewhere. The home nurse was still visiting every day. I had a huge dehissed wound, and three or four draining holes in my torso. I visited the oncologist who was my breast surgeon, and he was aghast. He called a plastic surgeon who saw me immediately. Over the next six months this surgeon hospitalized me four times for procedures he explaied were to dibreed the “tunnels”. This was done under general anesthesia. There were, additionaly , many office proceedures to dig in the open wounds. Generally speaking the pain was severe and debilitating. I was bedridden. The home nurse visited every day. The new doctor performed a skin graft over the dehissed wound. Slowly it began to heal, but the “tunnels” persisted and worsened. On one occasion I was home alone when a huge solid blob, “spit ” from one of the holes in my torso. I immediately visited the doctor. In his office he used an instrument to pull a wad of something solid from that hole. I asked what it was, and he said it was sutures. I knew that the Wound Vac that had caused me great pain, and a hemmorage, and now considered that perhaps it had pulled the sutures used in my Tram Flap apart, caused infection and the tunneling, that had now resulted in nearly a year of great pain, confinement to bed, and daily nurse visits. This was and remains conjecture on my part, since I am not a physician, and have never received any explanaition from a physician.The doctor scheduled yet another general surgery for me to be done on June 24, 2009. But at my pre-op visit he abruptly announced he was cancelling the procedure – he did not think it would help. He told me that I should come back in a month. Up until that pre-op visit, I had been seeing him weekly. I stii had open, draining wounds on my torso, anfd felt ill every day. I was bewildered. I called a general surgeon for whom I had great respect, but had not thought of involving in what was happening to me. He saw me immediately, and in October of “09 he operated to try to retrieve the sutures that were causing infection, pain, malaise, and the inablilty for me to conduct my life. I had in October ‘09 been “ILL” and housebound for a year and a half. I began to heal. On January 21, 2010, I read your article that said the FDA has issued a Med Watch safety alert about Negative Pressure Wound Therapy. I would lkie to discuss what has happened to me with an interested and knowledgeable attorney. I currently have no open wounds, and I have resumed my life, but I am permanetly disfigured, I have a huge hernia that was caused by months of probing in one of the larger holes, and I have sutures that are surfacing and getting ready to “spit”. Additionally, I am numb from my pevlvic area to my ribs, and try to tolerate a 24/7 feeling of having a huge, much too tight girdle on me, that I constantly feel the urgency to remove.

Comments on: Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Problems Linked to Deaths, Injuries

By: MICHAEL

By: wanda