On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 07:37:37 -0800, Don Bruder
wrote:

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

Sealed and sterile sutures can be purchased on Ebay occasionally for
about $3-5, or about $6 from medical supply companies. Tell em its for
veternary care of your livestock. Barbed wire ya know.

Hemostats are handy for this. Sterilized in alcahol of course.

Alcohol is a ****-lousy sterilizing agent, being truly effective against
only a few minor pathogens. Iodine solution is a *MUCH* better choice.

Very true. I keep a couple quarts of betadine solution around the
homestead..but most folks have alcohol handy. And frankly..if you wash
it pretty well with dish soap...then give it a run over an open flame
on the stove..shrug


But..unless the wound is huge and wide open..most of the time,
butterflys work pretty good, and a smidge of super glue does too.

Super glue was CREATED for exactly this purpose, and practically works
miracles. I can't count the number of times I probably should have had a
sawbones sink a few stitches, but made do with super glue instead. Quite
a few surgical patients and accident victims have had the wounds closed
with it over the years, too.

Most recent was chopping onions one night for stroganoff. I managed to
misplace a finger, and next thing I knew, I'd laid open the side of my
left middle finger to the bone betwen the back of the nail and the first
joint, with a big ol' flap of meat hanging from it. And hurt? Sweet
mercy, did it ever - Take my word for it: Onion juice in a cut is *NO*
kind of fun! Thankfully, it bled like a stuck pig, so the burning
stopped in fairly short order, but while it lasted... Hoooo, BABY, light
my fire!

Friend of the family who's an EMT desperately wanted me to make the trip
to the ER to have it stitched up. No way I was going for that. Washed it
out, added a drop of super glue and a tight gauze wrap, slipped a
surgical glove on to keep it dry, and I was back in business 15 minutes
later.

I caught hell about "putting too much of myself into my cooking" every
time I walked into the kitchen for weeks afterwards.

Today, I've got a "crescent moon" scar there that looks like somebody
drew it on with paint a shade lighter than the surrounding skin, using
the edge of a razor blade as the brush - It's so hair-line fine that
it's all but invisible.



"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences."
- Proverbs 22:3