The importance of sterile wound care for horses needs to be highlighted! Whether the wound appears after a session in the field or after lungeing, horse owners need to keep open horse wounds clean. This is a vital step to ensure quality wound healing.
Robinson Animal Healthcare have all the answers on why we should prioritise sterile wound care and how to perform it when our horses sustain an injury.
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Why is Sterile Wound Care Important?
One of the major factors in delaying wound healing is the onset of infection and once an infection becomes established it can be a long and costly road to recovery.
The time between an injury occurring and receiving treatment is critical as infection can take hold in as little as six hours, even in what looks like a relatively minor wound. That’s way it’s always important to have first aid essentials to hand!
When treating a wound, it is vital to ensure that all wound care and all first aid products are sterile to avoid contamination in the process of dressing and trapping unwanted bacteria, especially as they will come into direct contact with the wound.
Complications of Delayed Healing
There are a number of reasons why wound healing could be delayed, including reduced blood supply to the wound site, excessive movement preventing the wound from knitting together and poor general health.
A wound that is slow to heal can lead to further complications, which is another good reason why you should adhere to correct and sterile first aid equipment and procedures when initially treating a wound.
For a wound to heal, new granulated tissue needs to form but sometimes this can take a long time if the wound environment is not optimal for wound healing, resulting in exuberant granulation or ‘proud flesh’. By taking steps to minimise infection, healthy skin cells will have the best chance of developing for rapid wound healing.
If infection is allowed to take hold, particularly in the case of a puncture wound, this can lead to much more serious complications as the infection can potentially spread to the bones or joints, which can be difficult to treat. Any form of complication that delays the healing of a wound can have serious implications on the period of time spent out of work and the veterinary bills can soon spiral when a minor wound that should take a few weeks to heal turns into months of rehabilitation.
Products For Sterile Wound Care
Every first aid kit should contain wound dressings such as Skintact® from Robinson Animal Healthcare, which is available in a range of different sizes that are presented in sterile packaging.
The size of the dressing should fit the size of the wound to avoid having to cut down to size, as any unnecessary handling could contaminate the dressing, increasing the risk of infection. Wounds are able to heal quicker in a moisture controlled environment as the new epithelial cells can move around more easily, allowing the damaged tissue to repair, leading to faster healing.
Wound hydrogels are also perfect for sterile wound care. Working to both donate moisture and absorb excess exudate, hydrogels provide a more controlled wound environment. They also act by gently debriding wounds and rehydrating necrotic tissue which will then be removed from the wound surface. Vetalintex® from Robinson Animal Healthcare is presented sterile in 15g tubes for optimum infection control and should be applied liberally before applying an appropriate secondary dressing such as Skintact®.
It is also important to regularly check the expiry date on sterile products and discard and replace those that have expired. While the product inside could still be perfectly useable, the sterile barrier within the package may have deteriorated.
Robinson Animal Healthcare has a wide range of products for all your first aid requirements. For more information contact Robinson Animal Healthcare on 01909 735000 or visit www.robinsonanimalhealthcare.com
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Reporting on equestrian news stories, Abby also produces a variety of engaging content for the magazine.