Testing Wounds

What to do if you actually have a wound: now, if you have a wound, it’s actually pretty similar to some of the things that are going to be assessed if you were coming in for a screening visit except it’s just a little more sense of urgency. If you have a wound now, the things that might put you at greater risk for getting an amputation include infection and ischemia, or bad blood flow. Those things might be checked with a little greater attention and the circulation might be checked using techniques that we have already mentioned like a doppler test, like special other tests like an angiogram or an MRI or a CT angiogram and those will be done by vascular specialists. For checking for an infection, the diagnosis of an infection start and its end is not made with a test. That actual assessment is made by the doctor and he or she looks for clinical signs and symptoms of infection. What might those be? It might be some redness or pus or streaking up your leg or swelling in your lymph nodes or things along those lines. Or – they might order tests like a blood test to look for a high white count (which is the number of white blood cells in a certain volume) or things along those lines, but that starts and ends with the clinical assessment for infection. Other things that the clinician might look for are the size and shape and depth of your wound. They can attest this in a whole variety of ways, but really a lot of this is done just by the good quality clinical examination. The doctor might also photograph your wound or that might also be done by the nurse and that’s done so that they can check the wound from week to week or time period to time period and they can look at the overall surface area and size of the wound.