mmm… maggots.
Some of you will know that my day job is as a pharmacist in a big hospital in London's inner west.
My job there is half web-development and half pharmacist stuff. I spend the pharmacist half on a vascular surgery ward which throws up some pretty interesting stuff. Here's a quick list of some of the things I've seen recently.
- amputations, lots of 'em (usually legs or feet, usually the legs or feet of smokers – you white stick puffers take note)
- one woman who fell 3 floors from her flat window and impaled herself on the pointy metal bannisters below (cocaine-snorting, alcohol-fuelled party-people take note)
- one penile shaft fracture (my eyes water every time I imagine it)
- several stabbings
- one gunshot wound
But one of the most interesting things I've come across is the use of sterile larvae in wound management. Yes, I mean maggots, folks. These are only used on really manky, disgusting wounds, often as a last resort before amputation and they are extremely effective. They've apparently been used as therapeutic dressings since the American Civil War and have been noted in literature as far back as Napoleonic times.
We get them sent from a small award-winning laboratory in Wales in little vials. The tissue viability nurses whack them on the wound and away the little fellas go. They're in maggot heaven, munching on dead tissue, spewing out antimicrobial enzymes and destroying bacteria including the often mentioned MRSA, the so-called superbug (trust me folks when I say there are much worse bugs in our hospitals than MRSA.) When they go on, they are only a few millimetres long and a creamy translucent color. When they come of they have gorged themselves and are more like ten millimetres long and huge and fat, good enough for fishing. The nurses count the maggots on and off but there are always some missing.. hmm.. where do they disappear to? This is the reason larvae can't be used on wounds with a sinus (a hole) or near body orifices, lest any of them escape to the inside of the body (!)
I asked one patient what it felt like to have them wriggling around on their wound and she said it was fine, just a mild tickling sensation. But, she said "At night, if you're very quiet, you can hear them".
Hmm... not very pleasant, but better than a penile shaft fracture any day.
~ Comments ~
Jun 1, 6:24 AM
Sorry about that, Cath. I suppose you won’t want to hear about the penile shaft fracture then?
Jun 1, 11:54 AM
on the contrary tim. being female, i’m sure that i would be inappropriately amused by that story!
May 31, 12:25 PM
okay, I’m recovering from a particularly nasty bout of gastro and having my first true meal in two days (soup). this was not a good idea to read!