Healing the wounded

A couple of weeks ago I was in clinical practice as a home care nurse. As a part of National budget cuts, nursing clinics have been started in all the local centres for the elderly and infirm.

These clinics have the potential benefit of helping those who can walk or transport themselves so that they experience a sense of "normalcy" and avoid being isolated. It is also cheaper than having a nurse driving around all day.

One of the major issues faced here are leg ulcers. A condition where because of either bad circulation or trauma, ulcers appear on the patients lower legs (chins). This is very painful and often ends in a long healing process. Some patients have these ulcers for years, healing one then getting another or repeatedly opening the old one.
Because of the nature of the healing proces the wound is actually preventing itself from healing properly. After an initial surge of coagulants and blood to the wound the body begins to produce fibrin to make a scab over the area. In cronic leg ulcers, this temporary "shield" meant for keeping the area moist on the inside but dry and hard on the outside, just sits in the wound and gets in the way of the new tissue. Traditionally this is scraped away by a nurse and the wound is filled with a wet gel to inhibit the production of new fibrin. But the gel is also a very hospitable place for bacteria to grow, thus increasing the risk of infection. On top of that the body also produces certain proteins that inhibit regrowth after some time. Thus making the wound a stagnant mess.

After treating several of this ulcers, I began to recall something I'd seen in one of my podcasts. A new compound that was meant to inhibit the body's production of inflammation proteins and speeding up recovery tremendously.

The compound is called Nexagon and after an initial clinical test has been shown to speed up healing 6x. It also seems help close the wound completely, so recurring ulcers don't come back.
At the moment the company making it is doing their second clinical trial so this is still something to look out for in the future. The company is called CoDa Therapeutics Inc.

I for one am really looking forward to something like this coming to marked.

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