Hi, catra121:

One last thing I forgot to mention (aah! my bad memory again!) is that when I change my dressings, I throw away the old one in a small trash can. Guess what I noticed about 24 hours later!? (I had not payed attention to this potentially happening before; I had not even thought this could happen.) I noticed this part of my old dressing, the gauze pads whose centers were soaked in pus and had just a little bit of Flammazine cream left on them, had been eaten, YES, eaten by some little ants. Can you believe this!? Only the parts of my gauze pads with no pus and cream on them had not been eaten by these ants. How disgusting these ants are! Really!

I also noticed that these small ants were walking up along my left injured leg, biting it painfully here and there. Because of my RSD, these bites feel like burning bee stings. After what happened with the pus-soaked gauze pads in the trash can, my guess is that these ants are trying really hard to find a way to my pus-filled scraped knee wound to bite it (owww! owww! ) and eat all the pus they can (gross! ) This is one of the reasons why I use two bandages: the gauze bandage and the other one, whose name I do not know in English. I am trying my best to keep these ants off my wound, but I have the bad (and angry) feeling they are trying to find (and will succeed in finding) a way under my dressing to get to my wound, bite it, and eat the pus. I really, really do not understand how ants could be interested in eating pus. It most certainly does not taste good! If these ants absolutely want to get to my wound, which has not shown any sign of growing new skin, closing up, and healing, these ants just have to eat a very small part of the bandages and gauze pads; if they wanted to, nothing would prevent them from doing so.

Catra, you do not have to apologize; I know you and your boyfriend have a life of your own that keeps you busy. It is normal. You are both already being soo kind and compassionate when you respond to my messages, to give me information and comfort. I can assure you that I appreciate this. What would I do without you!? I know without the shadow of a doubt that you are doing the best you can. I will forever be grateful for what you are doing for me. You are both helping me soo, soo much more than my primary care physician and other doctors. I will never, ever forget this. Thank you very, very much.

Quote: "He uses the 70% rubbing alcohol...and neither one of us is sure about whether the non stinging stuff would be as good (though we don't necessarily have any reason to think it wouldn't be). The idea here is just to get it really cleaned out and disinfected."

I will buy the 70% stinging rubbing alcohol, because this is the one your boyfriend uses. Since it really worked on him, it should work on me also. When I think about the non-stinging rubbing alcohol, I am not so sure it will work at all, so I will not take any chances with using it. I will use the stinging rubbing alcohol, so I am at least sure it will work.

I will do just as you suggested, using the neosporin cream after the rubbing alcohol has dried.

Quote: "Using a cream might even feel soothing after cleaning it out with the rubbing alcohol."

This gives me even more reason to use this cream.

Quote: "You didn't mention how many times you go through the process of cleaning it out and bandaging it but it should probably be every 6-8 hours...more if it's seeping through the gauze even at those intervals. Cleaning it out more often may mean you can use "less" gauze."

From Mondays to Fridays, I work as a secretary-archivist in the garage where I had my work injury. I leave home for work at about 5:30 AM and I get home after work at about 5 PM. This gives me enough time to do, at home, in the evening, only one dressing daily, from Mondays to Fridays. This does not apply if one of these days is a vacation day. I could make more dressings at my workplace, but I would then have to take an extra large first aid kit, will all the necessary stuff inside. However, there is no bathroom in the garage for female employees, but there is a bathroom for male employees (especially for the mechanics who get dirty after taking care of cars in the garage). Female employees cannot use the male bathroom because it has no door to protect thr privacy of the female employees. Besides that, I am not sure at all my boss would appreciate my taking some time off work to do my dressings, even if the scraped knee wound was a work injury.

On Saturdays and Sundays, I can do more dressings, with my two-year-old baby boy looking on with lots of interest. He points at my old dressing, still on my injured knee, and asks me: "Do you hurt?" Since I hate lying to my son, I tell him the truth and I reply: "Yes, it hurts, but I will take medication to make the pain stop." He asks me a lot of questions, such as: "What is this? What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" Even if he may not understand all my answers, I do my best to help him understand, so he does not get scared or is less scared when he sees me crying. My child unfortunately knows, at his very young age, a lot about the medical world: he has spent more of his two years of life in the hospital than out of the hospital, because of his cystic fibrosis, the complications of this disease, all the transplants (one heart, two lungs, two kidneys), the recovery from surgery, the physical therapy, the hospitalizations for exams or for illnesses that could kill him, although harmless for another child (such as the flu).

Quote: "He also wanted to add that if you are able to soak your knee in warm water (like a warm bath) then that could help to draw out more of the pus too."

I will go to a store to look for a large enough plastic basin, which could be filled with warm water. Then I could sit in this basin and let my injured knee soak in this warm water. I guess I would have to do this until the water gets cold. After throwing the dirty, cold water away, I could wash the basin with some soap, fill it with some warm water again, and soak my knee by sitting in the basin again. No house in French Polynesia has bathtubs in them, which I find strange.

Quote: "A way that they sometimes track whether the infection is getting better here is to draw a circle around the red area surrounding the wound with a pen or marker and then track whether that redness is getting bigger than the circle or if it starts getting smaller. I don't know if you can do this given how sensitive the area is...but if you can it might give you a sense of whether it is getting better or worse."

This is a very good idea. I will use a permanent marker, like orthopedic surgeons when they mark the different areas of the knee, as well as the area(s) they are going to operate on. As for the pain and the sensitivity of the area of the scraped knee wound, I will stand the pain if it helps me tell if the infection (redness) is getting better or worse.

Quote: "It's actually better for you if the wound hasn't healed because it will be easier to drain the infection than if the scrape had scabbed over. Then you would have to lance it to get it drained and I cannot imagine how painful that would be in an area where you have RSD."

If my scraped knee wound has started to scab over or has completely scabbed over, I might think the infection has healed when, in fact, it has not. If a scab is present over the wound, apart eventually from the redness around it and the throbbing pain, how could I tell the wound is still infected? I guess the pus could not leak anymore if there is a scab over the wound.

Removing the scab would be nearly impossible, unless a local anesthesia was done (how very painful in an RSD area). I do not see my primary care physician accepting to do this, considering he does not believe in the infection, like I mentioned it in my previous messages.

As for draining the infection with a lance (do you mean a syringe with a needle?), I believe I would pass out from very strong fear before the doctor (dermatologist or orthopedic surgeon) even had the time to start draining the pus with his syringe and needle. I would think the doctor would have to drain the infection several times, especially if the pus keeps on "coming" again and again, after each drainage was done.

I thank you and your boyfriend very, very much. I got from you both much, much more information and help than from my doctors and Internet web sites. You are the best!