Wound Clinic Linksfield Road

are nasty incidents occurring in our lives. No age group is spared. What to do? Firstly, keep calm; run cold water over the affected area, apply burnshield, wrap with plastic wrap, and seek medical attention. If you haven't burn shield, just apply the plastic wrap. Do not remove any skin, or clothing that is stuck on the area.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem worldwide. Infected wounds are diminishing the patient's quality of life, negatively affect their families, carers, and have an enormous impact on finances.

Spider bites are on the rise. Please seek immediate medical attention if you suspect that you have been in contact with a spider

Raynaud's phenomenon is a condition in which the capillaries supplying blood flow to extremities are excessively contracting, especially during cold.
Initially, numbness with white, purple, blue color, are signaling distress.

NOT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS

https://youtu.be/-dbwN76ui3U

Mr. Bee - the story of a patient with a chronic wound. Medical Grade Honey treatment. Watch the story of Frans, a beekeeper who battled a difficult-to-heal leg wound. After attempting numerous ineffective treatments, the solution was discovere...

Take care of your feet!

Working hard on Freedom's day.

https://youtu.be/IWExoFGXhaA

L-Mesitran Soft demonstrates significantly stronger activity than the other honey products! L-Mesitran proves to be the best Medical Grade Honey product to get rid of biofilms in wounds. This was published in the journal Antibiotics. The study at th...

Simple and efficient ways.

How to treat a patient with diabetic foot | MESI – Simplifying Diagnostics Incidence of diabetes is on the rise and it is projected that this trend will likely continue in the future. The socioeconomic burden grows concurrently and many healthcare organisations and…

We are hiring!
Looking for an Enrolled Nurse, with basic computer knowledge (Microsoft Office).
To work Monday to Friday, 8h00 to 16h00.
Market related salary. Compulsory: care for patient's well-being.

To all our Jewish Friends around the world 🌎

Trusty information

Six months of Covid in South Africa. Here’s what we know now:

After a full half year of lockdown in South Africa, we’re still learning about the Corona virus contagion that has sickened the world. Some patients are battling to throw off the debilitating ME like symptoms that linger for many months. A trustworthy safe vaccine is still elusive. Our children are generally safe. The press tells us that immunity after contracting the disease is not a guarantee. Here’s an update on the current situation.

Can you get Covid-19 a second time?
Yes. A handful of cases have been confirmed around the world and the press typically have blown these extremely rare events into a front-page crisis. Immunologists and virologists agree that the general human immune response to Covid-19 is ‘comfortingly normal’ and is as one would expect from most viral infections.
Scientists say that the patient’s response of antibody formation and subsequent cellular immunity to Covid-19 is as normally anticipated. The normal decline in antibody levels after the infection is over does not imply that the memory part of your immune system has forgotten the virus. A lot of immune memory resides in the B-Cells and T-Cells that have been stored away. Any further encounter with the virus will quickly reboot your immune mechanism to protect you quicker than your first encounter so that any infection after the first one should be a non-event or at least very mild.
How long it all lasts is a question that only time will answer, but if you have actually contracted the disease its likely to be permanent. Vaccine manufacturers are aiming for this permanent state of affairs, but they are unlikely to attain the level of immunity that an infection will induce.
Big numbers: another way of looking at this is to hypothesize that a small number of people will indeed get it a second time- say 0.1% (=1 in 1000). With actual world figures of 29 million people infected thus far it would mean 29 000 people would have been tested positive a second time and we surely would have heard of them by now instead of the handful that the press fearmongers us with. In this 0,1% scenario, 28 971 000 people would not get a second infection.

Do masks help?
Yes. Surveillance figures of communities that introduced masks all show a sharp decline in infection rates. Furthermore, antibody tests in those communities have shown an increase in asymptomatic persons. This implies that although masks may not protect you completely from getting the infection, what seems to happen is that you may get a diluted number of viruses entering your upper respiratory tract in low enough numbers to induce an immune response with no overt illness.

Good news regarding children:
Liverpool University looked at paediatric statistics from 260 hospitals in England, Scotland and Wales. Of the 69500 Covid-19 hospital patients, 651 were less than 19 years old and 225 were under the age of a year.
No children without serious comorbidities died, nor did any children between 1 month old and 15 years old. Their symptoms were similar to those of adults, but critical care patients presented with confusion, altered consciousness and conjunctivitis. These critical care kids were more likely to have contracted the disease in hospital.

Long-Haulers:
A new worrying feature of this illness is the number of people who suffer longstanding symptoms after they have overcome the initial viral disease. This complication makes it no longer a simple case of getting the illness over and done with and this particular problem makes a strong incentive for the production of an effective vaccine. Normal convalescence statistics report 20% of people having symptoms 30 days after the illness and 10% at 45 days. Long-Haulers typically may feel sick for many months.
The Long -Haulers exhibit many of the much-disparaged symptoms of ‘Yuppie Flu” that was first reported in the late 1980’s with no physical causation ever confirmed, relegating many patients to psychiatrists. There has been an upsurge in interest in websites pertaining to ME (Myalgic encephalomyelitis, Yuppie Flu or CFS- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) due to the similarity of symptoms. There are over 60 000 people in the UK reporting this complaint.
Symptoms are many and varied, but in the main are: extreme fatigue aggravated by even mild exercise, breathlessness, poor concentration and focus, headache, muscular and joint aches, insomnia, cough and chest pains, dizziness, memory loss and anxiety. There may be a persistence of disease symptoms such as excessive sleepiness, taste and smell loss, thirstiness and painful fingers and toes.
The problems of these patients are compounded by them having no energy to work as well as concomitant income loss. Discussion with medical academics has shed no light on the causation of this syndrome and there are no laboratory markers to confirm its presence. In ME/CFS employers are prone to be unsympathetic and may blame it on malingering.
Treatment at this stage is largely supportive with various supplements being suggested. I fear that this condition is going to feed a frenzy of unethical alternate practitioners who will extort desperate patients with ‘energy drips’, unproven supplements, ozone infusions and the likes thereof. Perhaps serious scientists will now take a more focused look at this ME syndrome to explain its physiology.

Will we have a safe vaccine this year?
No, not until mid-2021
A group of competing vaccine development companies: Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, GSK and Sanofi recently signed a pledge amongst themselves to not release a vaccine unless rigorous standards are adhered to, now supported by the WHO. I suspect that this was in order to prevent presidential pressure before the US election in November. Last week the Oxford/GSK group reported a case of Transverse Myelitis (Spinal inflammation) halting its trial. Investigation of this patient attributed the cause to underlying Multiple Sclerosis and the trial is back on track.
It’s instructive to remember the outcome of rushing the 2009 Swine-flu vaccines to market without adequate testing. This presidential decree backfired when over a 1000 cases of Guillain-Barre paralysis ensued.

Will we have a second wave?
Yes, more information is currently surfacing but most importantly we still need to be vigilant.

With thanks to Dr Mark Holliday from the Gauteng GP group for sharing his comprehensive summary.

Spring day break. The team will heal!

Good advice from good doctors

Today let's talk about returning to exercise after a COVID infection...

Getting back into training after recovering from a COVID infection is not as clear cut as it is after other viral infections. For the past 30 years, we have relied on the “neck check” to decide when an athlete – elite or recreational – can return to sport after a respiratory infection. This rule would extend to anything from the common cold to a complicated pneumonia and is as follows:-
If your symptoms are confined to your head and neck, for example, a runny nose, sinus pain or a scratchy throat; AND you don’t have a fever or muscle aches, then you are most likely clear to train.
These criteria however, do not apply in the COVID scenario. There are many reasons for this, but the two that are the most worrying are:

1) It is possible for someone with mild novel coronavirus symptoms to deteriorate on around day 7

2) Cardiologists are seeing a higher incidence of heart issues in people infected with the virus. There is a 22% higher prevalence of cardiac injury in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 as compared to 1% in patients with other viral infections. It is currently not known how far reaching the effects of the virus are on asymptomatic people; on people who have mild-moderate infection and are not hospitalised; and the long term effects on those who have had severe infection either with or without cardiac involvement.

International sporting & cardiology experts therefore agree on a stepwise approach to resuming physical activity in the following way:-

COVID-19 POSITIVE & Asymptomatic
Wait 2 weeks before resuming training.

COVID-19 POSITIVE & Mild Symptoms
Wait for all symptoms to clear, then rest for a further 14 days before you try a workout.

COVID-19 POSITIVE & Severe Symptoms/Hospitalised WITHOUT heart issues
Wait for all symptoms to clear, rest for 2 weeks then be evaluated by your doctor.

COVID-19 POSITIVE & Severe Symptoms/Hospitalised WITH heart issue
Evaluation and clearance from a cardiologist once the 2 week rest period has been completed, is necessary.
The more high-level athlete you are, the more it is advised to go for a formal check-up which would include an ECG and cardiac enzyme level checks.

Knowing that the virus can cause complications in many systems of the body, the best practice is to resume training in a slow and steady way. You need to pay attention to both the physical and psychological effects of a workout.
Things to look out for during or after your workout would be: -
· A higher than usual resting and exercise heart rate, as well as a longer time to recover.
· Excessive fatigue – this includes knowing that you had a low intensity workout, and feeling completely exhausted afterwards (as if you’d done a much harder workout).
· Shortness of breath – more so than you normally would be during or after a training session.
· Dizzyness, Chest pain, Muscle pain and Palpitations.

The best way to go about getting going again, is to start with a very low intensity session and gradually build yourself up over a 3 - 4 week period. The British Journal of Sports Medicine has a fantastic return to play plan, that is easy to follow and available for all. It can be found on http://bjsm.bmj.com or just give us a call to guide you!

Different kind of visitors at the Clinic today!

Taking it a step further!
We do clean EVERYTHING in 95% alcohol, but some decontamination using QAC compound will be better for my beloved patients and staff!

PLEASE, increase your hygiene habits.

Thought for the day. I have heard it said many times that Healthcare workers are making jokes and not taking COVID 19 seriously. I would like to bring 4 facts to your attention. First, to work in Healthcare you must have a sick/dark sense of humor - sorry it’s just a requirement. And if you aren’t one of us, you don’t understand. Secondly, just because we aren’t buying 50 cases of Baked Beans and fighting over the last can of Antibac spray or loo roll at our local Morrison's , it doesn’t mean we aren’t preparing. Actually, we go to work daily not knowing what diseases we may come in contact with..... So, infection prevention and standard precautions are part of our everyday life. Third, when has mass hysteria helped any situation? Maybe we are trained to stay calm, cool, and collected in stressful situations. And last but not the least...while everyone is concerned about travel bans, government enforced quarantines, and being out of school/work for who knows how long, who do you think will still be allowed and required to go to work? You guessed it right..!! Healthcare workers! So.....Don't panic ...use your common sense ...be mindful of yourself and others...stay safe ... Now go wash your hands. 😷🧼🚰🏨