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Maggots...to heal a wound???


Nick_Spanich

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If you are interested in maggots for wound healing, you might also be interested in an enzyme derived from silk worms, serrapeptidase, which is said to remove dead tissue, while leaving healthy tissue alone. It's very interesting.

I wonder if maggots have a similar enzyme.

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I am one who likes bugs. But then again don't most science geeks. MY question is do they still use Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT)? It is when then put disinfected maggots on and open wound to kill the dead skin and heal the wound.

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

 

Lol, I freaked out when I first watched that on t.v. They use cultured or clean populations of maggots over a wound. It speeds up the healing process, reduces infection and amount of scar tissue.

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How can the maggots tell if the tissue is dead without eating it first?

 

And how could you trust them not to go crawling up an artery and getting lost...?

 

pretty certain they only eat the dead/infected stuff - must be the flavour.

 

I saw a documentry on this - if you leave them in the wound too long then they run out of dead stuff and infected meat to feed on and then they turn on each other - there have been cases of bandages being removed and people finding just one large maggot left over!.

 

I don't think maggot poo is an issue.

 

 

 

Hmm.. lovely topic - I'm just off to lunch.

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How can the maggots tell if the tissue is dead without eating it first?

 

And how could you trust them not to go crawling up an artery and getting lost...?

 

1. You aren't going to have an open artery or vein large enough for them to crawl up. If you did, you would have bled to death long before. Any artery or vein that large, if it had been severed, would have been either clamped, sutured closed, or reattached by the surgeon before any maggots are turned loose in the wounds.

 

2. These are used only on chronic wounds, not acute ones. These are superficial at the skin. Thus there are no large arteries in the neighborhood for them to crawl up.

 

3. Maggots don't eat vascularized (with blood flow), living tissue.

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3977/is_200303/ai_n9216510

http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/som/pathology/sherman/home_pg.htm

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