Pain Relief For Wound Dressing

Use dressing securement techniques that ensure longer wear time of the dressing selecting products that are gentle to skin for removal.

Pain relief for wound dressing.

White r harding k 2006 trauma and pain in wound care. Dressings topical creams and lotions have been promoted to reduce the pain of ulcers. Typically caused by damage to body tissue. Gauze is most likely to cause pain.

This pain is often described as sharp aching or throbbing. Wound dressings help protect your wound while it heals so you need to follow your doctor s wound care instructions closely to make sure you are using and changing your dressings correctly. Minimising pain at wound dressing related procedures. World union of wound healing societies 2004 principles of best practice.

World health organization 1996 cancer pain relief. Incident pain occurs at the wound site throughout the day during simple activities such as sneezing coughing walking or changing position. Common wound related etiologies include decubitus ulcers mucositis and procedures such as debridement dressing changes or radiation treatments 2 3. Background pain can be an intermittent or continuous nagging pain at the site of a wound even at rest.

Procedural pain is directly related to activities and procedures like a daily wound dressing change. Pain assessment results demonstrated that respondents made a general assessment of pain rather than specifically assessing patients pain at the time of wound dressing changes. Choose a dressing that can stay in place longer if pain is an issue and choose a dressing that promotes moist wound healing. A wound dressing change can be painful in the moment but it is necessary for long term pain relief.

Often wound pain is a combination of nociceptive or neuropathic pain 1. Dried out dressings and adherent products are most likely to cause pain and trauma at dressing changes. Dressing removal is considered to be the time of most pain. Talking to the patient was the most important factor for eight countries but for other countries facial expression and body language were the most important.

There is pain related to the wound itself and what is called incidental pain pain that is caused by dressing changes debridement or other types of medical care. Of course some patients are unfortunate enough to already have acute or chronic pain from another condition in addition to the wound itself. The world union of wound healing societies differentiates between four types of pain. One trial indicated that pain relief achieved over 5 days with ibuprofen dressings could represent a clinically relevant reduction in pain.

Pain management in wound care is a constant concern for clinicians.