Cleaning Pin Sites

Cleaning the pin sites has to be done daily since they are open wounds and they can easily get infected.

Unfortunately, pin site cleaning is painful to Mary. She currently has 6 pins and 10 thinner blue wires through her leg. Luckily, they do not all hurt every time and the ones that hurt change.

Different doctors have different solutions they want you to use for cleaning: saline, saline/hydrogen peroxide combo, hydrogen peroxide only, etc. I would follow your doctors instructions.

We use the supplies below:

• We found the long sterile cotton tipped applicators from a local medical supply store made it easier to reach the site for the actual cleaning. A bonus was since one end is a wood tip vs. cotton it helps scrape away any crusties if there are any.
• We use regular q-tips since they are cheaper than the long handled ones to clean the actual strut/wire after cleaning the actual sites.
• Use one q-tip per strut/wire.
• We found small trash basket bags at Target to put the used applicators and q-tips.
• We started cleaning the sites at the end of her daily shower but when her knee was immobilized it made the shower too long and we started cleaning the sites in the recliner prior to her shower. (I prefer after the shower because it softens the gunk up.)
• Here's a good site:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz25yM5UDyI&feature=plcp

I certainly don't recommend you getting a new puppy during the leg lengthening process but it is nice to have a caring pet. One night when Daddy was cleaning Mary's pin sites in the shower, our dog heard Mary was upset and went in and kept licking his hand to get him to stop.

Here is a picture of our dog once again coming to Mary's side when she was uncomfortable during a pin site cleaning. (She's black so she blends into the recliner but she is there!)

Our dog helping Mary during a pin site cleaning