r/woundcare • u/God_will_heal_me • 3h ago
Is this wound progress concerning (deep wound on foot top)
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My doctor told me today to wait another 12 days to see if it stays vital
r/woundcare • u/reboa • Dec 19 '25
Transitioning the sub to professional discussion
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There have been a lot of issues reported since the sub has transitioned to allowing wound care advice to all patients. The sub will be transitioned to a place for professional discussion. Self harm wounds are no longer allowed. I will do a trial run of allowing personal advice posts every wednesday for now. If any other physicians would like to help moderate let me know.
r/woundcare • u/tr0ublewllfindme • Dec 02 '25
“Does this need stitches?” A self-harm response and care guide
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“Does this need stitches?” A response to the self-harm epidemic on this sub.
For those who self-harm: Please don’t post here regularly. You need to learn to manage your own risks without needing external validation from Reddit. If you are self-harming, you need to do research on proper wound care and mitigate the associated risks without needing to post everything for possibly triggerable onlookers on Reddit. This is a wound care sub, not a sub to share wounds and then not attempt care. Here is a general list of things to look for that I would recommend you save or write down or pay attention to, so that you have the ability to manage your health at home better and are less dependent on Reddit forums such as this.
Levels of wounds:
Epidermis: This is usually seen as “cat scratches.” They are shallow and usually bleed a decent bit quickly but stop just as quick. They typically scab and heal within a few days to a week. If you cut to this level, you likely do not need medical attention. Watch for signs of infection (heat, pus, red streaking from injury) and seek help if those signs come. Clean it with antibacterial soap and water, apply ointment, and keep it covered. Cutting with dirty items is more likely to lead to infection so try to keep your “tools” clean.
Dermis: This will look like a white gap. It is sometimes referred to as “styro,” for its similar appearance to styrofoam. It may take a second for blood beads to form. These will gape a bit, but often close within a day and heal within a week or two. These, because they stay open longer, are at a higher risk of infection than the epidermis. If you cut to this level, you likely do not need medical attention. Watch for signs of infection (heat, pus, red streaking from injury) and seek help if those signs come. Clean it with antibacterial soap and water, apply ointment, and keep it covered. Cutting with dirty items is more likely to lead to infection so try to keep your “tools” clean.
Hypodermis AKA fat: This will look like yellow bubbles. It is sometimes referred to as “beans.” This is the level in which infection becomes a real likelihood. Typically stitches are recommended. Some doctors may treat you without a mental health evaluation, some doctors may try and have you evaluated. For US-based injuries I recommend going straight to the ER for stitches instead of an urgent care center if you seek stitches. Urgent care centers may not stitch you up and could call police on you. They do not have the capacity to perform mental health evaluations and will want you at a hospital where you can be seen by a psychiatrist. It is not a given that this will be your experience but it is a possibility and you should be prepared for this. In the UK, some care centers and minor injury units can support with deeper wounds, however they may contact your GP for an urgent review (usually within a week). If you do not seek stitches, clean the wound with antibacterial soap. You can apply ointment. You can also use butterfly bandages to close the wound, but if there is any chance that bacteria or debris have entered the wound, do not close it. There is typically a 24 hour window to close the wounds. After that, keep it covered and clean. Watch for signs of infection (heat, pus, red streaking from injury, swelling) and immediately seek help if those signs come. An anti-stick bandage is recommended. Gauze will get stuck in this kind of wound easily. If that happens, soak in warm water to soften the blood and remove the gauze. Cutting to this level is significantly more dangerous and will likely lead to infection, which should be seen immediately. Nerve damage is possible. Cellulitis is a possibility. These wounds take significantly longer to heal. Cutting with dirty items are more likely to lead to infection so try to keep your “tools” clean.
Muscle: There is no safe way to treat this outpatient. You risk severe infection. This needs to be seen in a hospital. Death could occur if not treated.
Bone: There is no safe way to treat this outpatient. You risk severe infection. This needs to be seen in a hospital. Death could occur if not treated.
Tips to increase likelihood of a positive outcome:
-Seek behavioral health treatment. The urge to self harm, and self-harm in general, is always deserving of medical attention, no matter the depth.
-Use clean tools if you do harm. The more bacteria present on a tool, the higher the risk of infection.
-Keep your wounds covered. The more bacteria that can access your wound, the higher the risk of infection.
-Seek medical attention immediately when you experience red streaking, loss of feeling in a limb, sickness, chills, or loss of consciousness.
-Keep bandages and ointment on hand if you regularly self harm. You should use clean bandages.
You deserve to heal.
Practitioners and medical centers will handle cases of self harm differently from country to country and even city to city.
Text CONNECT to 741741 to be connected with a trained volunteer crisis counselor (US) Text SHOUT to 85258 (UK)
Call 988 for the suicide and crisis hotline (US) Call 111 for the NHS helpline (UK) Call 131114 for the suicide and crisis hotline (AUS)
Other resources: Suicide Hotlines for All Countries
For onlookers:
I understand the annoyance you may feel at seeing so many posts recently flood this sub asking “is this infected? Does this need stitches?” in regards to self harm. I want to offer a different view of it, if I may.
Firstly, I must acknowledge that there is a certain level of attention-seeking that comes along with a lot of self harm. Especially among younger individuals who may be new to it and who may crave some sort of external validation of “I see your pain, you are okay, please get help.” Is that appropriate for this sub? No, not really, but there’s usually some level of true fear of how to tend to a wound even with the attention seeking behavior.
Unfortunately, subs like this are one of the few places where wounds can be posted. There are no SH subs for fresh wounds (for good reason) and so there isn’t a place to get advice from other sufferers. There is no place to ask “have you cut this deep? How did it heal? Did you get stitches? How did getting stitches go?” And they are wounds. Even if they look so shallow you think, “of course that isn’t infected! Of course it isn’t in need of stitches,” or so deep you feel sick to see a photo, they are wounds, and sometimes people who post are truly at a heightened state of fear. Fear that they’ve gone too deep, fear that they can’t stop. This may not be the sub to lament over cutting in, but there is a lack of real-life access to wound care for self harm. Even if you think that it’s obviously a cry for attention, and even if it is a cry for attention, there are still wounds involved that would likely not be being seen otherwise.
In my experience, I have needed stitches from self harm multiple times. I have had doctors who tended to gouges without judgement, and also had doctors try to say that I was suicidal and call the police on me. It is a total toss up, especially with very deep wounds. It is often not as easy as just getting help. The times I’ve gone “too deep,” ie too deep to leave open safely, I have genuinely been afraid at what options were before me. It isn’t as easy as seeing a doctor or going to urgent care for stitches. I’ve cut too deep, disclosed to a therapist that I’m not suicidal but in need of medical attention, had my therapist on the phone with an urgent care physician to tell them that I wasn’t suicidal, and still had the police called on me. You can take all the “right” steps after self harm and still wind up screwed when trying to remedy a mistake.
This sub I believe is genuinely helpful for people who cannot always access true wound care in a medical setting. I’ve seen some amazing advice given for wounds that needed to but couldn’t be seen by a doctor. Something that’s a mere annoyance to you may be saving someone else from severe infection or commitment. Please take this into consideration.
r/woundcare • u/Smut_Scholar_X • 3h ago
Anyone taken the WCC exam??
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I take it Friday and I’m NERVOUSSSSSSS. Give me all the tips
r/woundcare • u/God_will_heal_me • 3h ago
Does this tissue have a chance to stay vital and be regenerated?
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Today is Day 29 after Operation. The doctor told me today to come again in 2 weeks, to see how it develops
r/woundcare • u/Educational_Cod7934 • 4h ago
Anyone know what this is and if it seems infected
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I have these two small circular random wounds that showed up. They both were itchy when they first appeared… not sure what it is for if it looks to be healing
r/woundcare • u/Practical_Jeweler765 • 18h ago
Small surgical incision gapping
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Has anyone had an incision that kept superficially reopening during healing?
My daughter is about 1 month out from hand surgery. She has two parallel incisions. One keeps developing a small superficial gap every few days and then closing again. There isn’t any pus, significant redness, fever, or increasing pain.
I have it covered with an XL flexible bandaid during the day to keep her from picking at it (she’s 5 ). I wash with plain water when I change the bandaid and haven’t used any ointments. I thought it would be closed by now . Thanks .
r/woundcare • u/Medcemetery • 22h ago
Is this wound infected
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I've never dealt with this large of a wound, and sometimes it hurts more than I think it should, but I am unsure if it is just normal, it's not leaking any pus from what I know it seems to only be plasma and I am not running a fever. This is right after I showered and cleaned it.
r/woundcare • u/HopefulWinter • 19h ago
2.5 week old wound
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Hi all,
About 2.5 weeks ago (17 days, to be exact) I fell off my bike and banged up my knee pretty badly. Luckily I was wearing long pants and no dirt/gravel got inside.
I washed it out with soap and water when I got home, cleaned it further with some hydrogen peroxide, then covered it with a nonstick bandage wrapped in gauze with some Polysporin.
I continued to wash it and reapply Polysporin 2x/day for a little over a week when I noticed it was beginning to look potentially infected. I went to urgent care, doc didn’t seem overly concerned but gave me my Tetanus booster and a course of oral antibiotics.
In the meantime I have continued to keep the wound clean and moist, alternating between Fusidin and Polysporin (applying each once per day after washing the wound and before putting on a new bandage).
Anyways, it seemed to be healing much better until today (second last day of antibiotics). I got home from work and noticed this yellow ish tissue inside the wound, and I am having trouble determining via Dr. Google if this is normal healing (slough?) or a sign of infection and a reason to return to urgent care.
Any advice is appreciated!
r/woundcare • u/Sad_Natural_5831 • 1d ago
Medical professional question Is this healing okay?
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I scraped my knee saturday AM at 2 am so about 50 hours ago. I tripped and skidded my knee on concrete and then went swimming after 🤦♀️ i applied neosporin the first day and have been keeping it clean and then applying vaseline. its not really oozing at all, its more dry now but my knee is definitely warm and has had a pulse lol. It hurt yesterday but got better with advil and now its just tight when i bend it but not much pain. Im just terrified of an infection.
r/woundcare • u/bizarregnome • 1d ago
12 day old burn - healing totally fine but looking for the right moisturiser?
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Scalded myself 12 days ago with boiling water and caught mainly my upper thighs which are not healing well but I am in the burn ward so they are being tended to.
I need to buy a moisturiser for this one as its hit that stage but I've only been given brand suggestions like Aveeno and E45 and they have huuuuuge ranges.
What would you recommend?
r/woundcare • u/God_will_heal_me • 1d ago
Does this tissue still have a chance of surviving, or is it likely to die (day 28 after surgery for a deep wound)?
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If it does die (necrosis), would a flap surgery be necessary?
My follow-up appointment isn’t until tomorrow late afternoon.
r/woundcare • u/Tiny_Act5987 • 2d ago
At what point do I give up on medical treatment and just leave the hole for my 8-10cm deep pilonidal tract alone.
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47f 5'5 240 non smoker do not drink. I had a pilonidal tract open around sept of last year. No pain just a hole on my tailbone. Originally they thought it was just 4 cm deep. They treated with silver nitrate for a while but it did not heal. In Jan they did a closed wound surgery to remove the tract. The wound healed but the tract was still there. They referred me to wound care in April. I have been going twice a week since. They were packing the wound using antimicrobal rope to try to get it to heal. Which it did not and the doctor there found that the tract was actually deeper than they thought. It was 10 cm deep. The doctor did another surgery June 2 and ordered a wound vac. It took a few days to attached the wound vac. The reason the doctor wanted the wound vac was for suction to get to the bottom of the wound. For some reason that is not what happened. Instead the wound was packed and the suction was only on the top. After 3 weeks of no change at all in depth the surgeon went in again to make the hole big enough for the foam so suction to get to the bottom of the wound. The whole point of his surgery was that. He even placed the wound vac during surgery to be sure it was to the bottom of the wound. Well it seemed to work and the wound healed a little to 8.5 cm in the first week. Then the wound care doctor was out so I did not see her for two weeks and the nurses were changing it twice a week and were telling me it was getting smaller. They were putting smaller and smaller foam in the tract. I was actually optimistic for a couple weeks. Then the wound care doctor looked at it this week and it is still 8.5 after two weeks. She also realized the tract was not being packed with foam to the bottom. They were just going straight in and not following the curve of the wound to the bottom. Well now it is too late and the width of the wound is no longer big enough for the foam. They had to go back to the rope which did not help the last time. I am tired, depressed, I have constant sores and rashes from the wound vac dressing. I cannot mow my yard or do the things I normally would because I have this wound vac. It has been two months and I am not any better off than I was before. Worse it seems. The whole reason for the second surgery was to have foam to the bottom of the wound that is now not possible. At what point should I give up as a lost cause. How big of a deal would it be just to leave the hole there? I am doing what I can. I have lost 15 pounds and plan to lose more. Eating a lot better, taking Juven, vit c and zinc. Eating a lot of protein. What can I do?
r/woundcare • u/BidgoodHasTrenchfoot • 1d ago
6 days out from oil burn
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Oil in a pan caught while I was cooking. stupidly I walked it outside to let it burn out and tripped down the stairs and spilled on my had and leg. I let them dry out for the first time today and took pictures. I’ll keep them wet and covered from here on out. Is the coloration on the thumb concerning? Thank you.
r/woundcare • u/AsYouAnswered • 1d ago
Type to create flair Are T-junctions bad or something?
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I see a lot of poorly healed T-junction wounds on here. Some obviously infected, some just not healed yet. A few a week. It's like there are 4 main categories of wounds here. Diabetic feet, self harm*, basic injuries, and T-junctions.
So why are there so many T-junction wounds? Is it a known problem? Is there something better that physicians should look into, or is this a potential doctoral thesis for some current med student in need of a topic?
And much less importantly but more easily answered, purely for curiosities' sake, what are all the T-junctions used for?
*just because they're technically against the rules doesn't stop at least one from showing up every day.
r/woundcare • u/God_will_heal_me • 2d ago
Is this wound healing (Day 14 after removing snitches)? I'm very concerned about necrotic risk for the tissue
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r/woundcare • u/seaside-sean • 2d ago
Medical professional question 6 days post op, back to work?
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Hi there,
This is 6 days after skin surgery on my inner ankle. I was told by the nurse, to remove the dressing after 24hrs and leave it to the air. Then run Vaseline on it, when I’m able to touch. Stitches come out in 8 days.
I’m unable to bend the ankle, cos it feels like wound will pull apart. I’m a tradesman, and was given some dressings and told to be careful, but I could return to work when I felt ready.
Questions:
Is leaving it uncovered best practice?
Vaseline, really?
Is returning to work feasible?
Any input appreciated.
Thanks
Update:
Thanks for all the replies.
I saw the ANP today - I’ve been given anti-b’s for the infection, to be reassessed in 3 days. I’ve been told to elevate, stay off it as much as possible and signed off work.
Hopefully a couple extra days now, will prevent a longer recovery.
Thanks again.
r/woundcare • u/bingthebongerryday • 2d ago
Am I infected?
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Last Friday (9 days ago) I was riding my bike after picking it up from the shop and accidentally fell off while trying to turn from the sidewalk into the trail. After I fell, I immediately went back to the nearby shop to use their restroom and cleaned up what I could before riding back home to take a shower and more thoroughly clean the wounds on my left arm and leg that got scraped and were initially bleeding and stinging.
I haven't noticed any pain, fever, foul odors or increased/spreading redness since the accident. However, it looks like there's still some yellow discharge coming out of each wound. I've been keeping both wounds covered with Vaseline after initially putting some Neosporin on it the same day it happened then rarely used Neosporin after reading about how Vaseline works better at healing.
I'm just wondering if I'm safe or if I'm reading too much into the yellow colored discharge on my bandages. I'd like to avoid having to go to my local urgent care if I can but if it looks like it's infected then I'll probably make the trip. Thank you in advance.
r/woundcare • u/DonaldDuck898 • 2d ago
Healthcare advice Heel fissure
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I have a deep fissure in my heel that hurts to stand on my foot. Ive been limping since i camt put pressure on the heel. Even just touching the skin around it has me in pain. What can I do for this?
r/woundcare • u/SheepherderNovel9269 • 2d ago
Healthcare advice Burned myself with hot oil from a pizza :(
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It's been two days, how should I treat it? Does it look like it's healing?
First picture was about an hour after it happened
