Bed Sores

Bed sores are generally form where your bones are close to your skin, such as your ankles, back, elbows, heels and hips. You are at risk if you are bedridden, use a wheelchair, or are unable to change your position.

Bedsores can develop in most people with just a couple of hours of constant pressure and range from mild reddening to severe craters that extend into the muscle and bone. They’re quite a nuisance and sometimes painful.

Symptoms of Bed Sores

Symptoms and Complications of Bedsores
A pressure sore generally starts as a reddened, sensitive patch of skin and often goes on to form into a sore or ulcer that can extend deep into the muscle and even bone. If left untreated, a pressure sore may lead to cellulitis or a chronic infection.

Causes of Bed Sores

Bed Sores Symptoms, Causes and Remedy
- Your skin rubbing against another surface, or when two layers of skin slide on each other, moving in opposite directions and causing damage to the underlying tissue. This may happen if you are transferred from a bed to a stretcher, or if you slide down in a chair.

- Dehydration and poor nutrition are also main causes that lead to undernourished skin conditions and consequently cause bed sores

- Bed ridden patients experience

decreases levels of mental awareness on account of medications or other reasons and therefore do not react immediately to the need of changing positions or easing discomforting positions in bed or chair.

- Excessive moisture that softens your skin and reduces its resistance can also cause pressure sores. This can occur with excessive perspiration and with urinary or fecal incontinence.

Home Remedies for Bed Sores

- Avoiding continuous pressure on any one area by changing positions at least every two hours

- Use a ripple mattress or ripple bed such that circulation of blood is effected throughout the body

- Air mattresses, cushions, pillows or other forms of support can also help change positions

- Massage the body or employ possible physiotherapy to exercise parts of the body

- Eat a well balanced and nutritive meal with extra proteins to maintain healthy tissues

- Keep skin clean and dry at all times

- Apply zinc oxide ointment, Aloe vera, wheat germ oil or comfrey on the affected area.

- Mix powdered comfrey leaves with slippery elm in equal quantity to form a paste. Put this paste on piece of cloth and tie it with the affected area overnight.

Medical conditions such as the following also put you at risk:

• anemia
• infections
• edema
• diabetes mellitus
• stroke
• dementia
• alcoholism
• fractures
• cancer malignancies