Posted on 01/06/2024 3:10:16 AM PST by Jemian
My husband and I need some medical advice.
We live in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia. One of the things we do is provide a home for two pre-teens from an even more remote location.
The boys just returned to us from spending Christmas with their family a few hours ago. We have just learned that the youngest, age 11, stepped on a nail a week ago. His family took him to a doctor and was treated. When the boy told us about it tonight at supper and mentioned he may need to have additional care here, he said that the doctor did NOT give him a tetnus shot. We, at this moment, do not know if he has even been vaccinated. We're trying to locate that information.
My question is: have we missed the window of time to get a tetnus shot? If so, what are symptoms of tetnus?
I have looked at the wound and do not see any infection. It is quite tender, but minimal, if any, swelling, no pus or discharge. Sadly, under the skin, there was an area about the size of a quarter that was filled with black sand (or gravel the size of sand). I did minimal cleansing with hydrogen peroxcide and some of the dirt was removed. Now, we're having him soak his foot in warm soapy water with about a handful of epsom salts.
Any advice? We want to help and not harm. We do live in town and can take him to a doctor tomorrow. (It is already late on Saturday night here.)
Clostridium tetani is sensitive to penicillin and therefore to amoxicillin, but it’s the toxin in the tissue that kills.
Most people would at this point give tetanus immunoglobulin as well as vaccine.
Thank you all for your advice. We will be taking him to a doctor when the clinics open tomorrow. It is almost 2200 here and so I am off to sleep. If you are a praying person, and I am, the child’s name is Sam.
DOH!, yes. precaffeinated me forgot to mention that. IF available, TIG. But it’s on our clinic’s flow charts, NOT something we carry, or I’ve ever used outside of residency 30 years ago so easy to forget.
BETADINE: I was surprised when an ENT doc I respect very highly (David Bianchi, MD, COL USN retired, often voted best ENT in Maryland by other doctors) suggested this for NETI when I got colonized with MRSA. He said to add just enough to color the saline solution to the tint of “WEAK TEA” and I did this for several weeks while taking bactrim DS and applying mupirocin (Bactroban) to/in my nose. Staph Eradication Protocol was something in vogue way back in the latter 20th century, you don’t hear about it much because it’s virtually impossible to eradicate 100% but, that, as they say, is another story.
I&D is generally read as “Incise and Drain” but depending on the kind of wound or abscess, “Debride” too.
Good luck, God Bless. Sleep well.
Ask him if it bled a lot when he stepped on the nail (also was the nail rusty). Usually if there is a good bleed, the blood will carry away any germs and the cut can be safely cleaned and dressed.
My kids were never vaccinated. They played outside and stepped on plenty of things. Seeing as this is someone else’s child, however, I’d probably have the doctor take a look at it. Now it’s watch and wait.
They’re not your kids... Their family took them to the Drs and was treated. End of discussion.
You can count on my prayers!
Orthodox Free Republic Doctrine dictates there shall be no vaccinations.
It specifically states on most containers in this country at least, that Hydrogen Peroxide should NOT be used on puncture wounds.
Funny-my brother and I were talking about an experience I had as a kid when I was perhaps eight years old.
There was an old, abandoned stable in a farmer’s field across from our house, and it had a hayloft that they used as a “club house”, but I wasn’t big enough to make the necessary climb. I couldn’t reach the roof from a nearby tree, which meant I would not be able to get down.
But being the younger of the kids, I tried and managed to get up. But I couldn’t get down, so in desperation, my brother suggested I hang off the roof and put my legs in a window.
So, I was hanging onto the roof (my armpits and above were still on the roof, so I couldn’t see below me) which stuck out perhaps a foot from the wall with the window, and couldn’t feel it with my feet. So my brother said it was right under my feet and if I let go, my feet would land on it.
Of course, that would never work, but I couldn’t get back up on the roof, so I let go.
I plummeted perhaps ten feet onto a pile of rusty scrap metal consisting of old torn up bed springs and discarded farm implements, and I impaled my right shin on something. Oddly, it didn’t tear my blue jeans, but it was clear I had done something, because I could see blood spreading out around the fabric. With my arm around my older brother’s shoulder, I hobbled to a neighbor’s house and pulled up the leg of my jeans, and saw a hole in my shin oozing blood profusely.
I was sitting by a garden hose, so I poured water over it, and saw the hole appeared to be about an inch in diameter and at least an inch deep. (I can verify the diameter by looking down at my leg now at the scar) I just missed my shin bone, and as I peered into it, I saw a thing that looked like a piece of cooked spaghetti in a tomato sauce of blood. Don’t know what that was, but might have been a blood vessel for all I know.
I was terrified of getting stitches, so I never told my parents about it. It took about a year to heal, and it didn’t heal well. During that time, I kept it hidden, but I remember gnats getting into it and things like that. My dad got orders to Japan where we lived about a year later, and I was walking on a seawall of rocks, slipped, and the whole thing came open again. Then I had to make up a story, because I had been told to stay away from that area, and had also lost my glasses when I fell. But I got a tetanus shot and stitches this time.
Point is, I was talking about this incident with my older brother the other night, and thought “My God, I could have got tetanus, but...as soon as I said it, I laughed.
No. I was accident prone, and probably got more tetanus shots and boosters than any kid I know. The doctors gave them to me like they gave lifesavers to other kids, and even my parents lost track, so there was no chance, none, that I was ever going to get tetanus!
For what it's worth, tetanus comes from horses. Had I known that, I won't have gotten a recent booster @ 69 yr's of age, and still welding.
Keep soaking until cleared
All else should be fine
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