Wound Center
	Ostomy Services
	Hyperbaric Chamber
	Hyperbaric FAQ
	HBO Clinical Indications
	Closing Wounds by Rebuilding Skin
	Diabetic Foot Wounds
	Tips for Foot Care

Wound Center
240-313-9580

If there is one thing babies love to do, it's play with their feet. As children grow, the foot fascination soon ends. But examining our feet is something that we shouldn't necessarily outgrow—especially for people who have diabetes.

Why focus on the feet? Because they work hard for us and are subject to blisters, splinters, cuts, and bruises. In short, the feet can easily get injured, and for someone with diabetes a small injury can become a medical emergency.

Due to the high likelihood of nerve damage that can keep diabetics from feeling wounds, and blood circulation problems, even the smallest wounds often fail to heal and must be treated quickly and effectively. Each year, 82,000 people lose their foot or leg to diabetes in the United States, according to the American Professional Wound Care Association. Click here for foot care advice from the National Diabetes Education Program.

Ernest Welch was able to get help in time. Mr. Welch's troubles began when he noticed his left foot beginning to swell, and it just wouldn't go away. He had only been diagnosed with diabetes six years ago, and he had quickly learned that diabetics need to check their feet daily.

On a visit to the Wound Center, Dr. Thomas Gilbert diagnosed Mr. Welch's condition: Charcot foot, a disease process where multiple bones in the foot become de-mineralized and fracture. It is a condition common in diabetics due to nerve damage that weakens the bones. If not caught early, amputation of the foot can be the only solution.

"I'm famous for being adaptable to whatever they want," joked Mr. Welch of his patience as a patient. The Wound Center doctors put him on a round of treatments that began with Dermagraft, a skin substitute made from human cells known as fibroblasts.

Each week, Mr. Welch traveled the 45 minutes to Hagerstown to have the have the graft changed, but developed an infection that required treatment with intravenous antibiotics—which postponed his planned next step of treatment: the hyperbaric chamber. At the new Meritus Medical Center, this problem is solved with the hyperbaric chambers which allow patients to be treated with intravenous antibiotics while undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

After two months, the infection was treated and Mr. Welch was ready for his "dive", the term used for the time spent in the pressurized chamber. It comes from the origin of hyperbaric medicine, which was discovered as a wound treatment in the 1930s when the U.S. Navy first used the tanks to treat divers who suffered decompression illness. As a retiree, he obligingly took the early morning and late evening shifts at the busy hyperbaric chambers.

Accompanying his hyperbaric treatment was another new specialty of the Wound Center: Apligraf, a skin substitute containing human cells of both fibroblasts and keratinocytes. Between the two treatments, Mr. Welch found his wound had closed to less than the size of a pinhole in March.

While dramatic, Mr. Welch's healing experience is not unusual. The Wound Center has healing rates well above the national average. Should you develop a foot sore that doesn't heal within thirty days, ask your doctor for a referral to the Wound Center, or call the center directly for an appointment.