So you just went through a nerve wrecking surgery or you just had a minor accident in the kitchen while making dinner for your loved ones? Whatever your circumstances are, when your skin is cut- either just a small cut in your home or a major incision in an operating theatre- there will always be risk of infection out of the wound.

What is an infected wound and how wounds get infected?

Infected wound is a situation when some sort of bad bacteria goes into a break on your skin so they can (and will) infect the area of your wound.

Other than the germs that are flying in the air or exist in our skin and inside our body organ that can cause infected wound, the risk of getting an infected wound is higher for some patient with certain condition such as poorly controlled diabetes, people who are overweight or obsessed, or those who are smoker and people with low immune system.

There are also other factors that you might not be able to control that can cause your wound gets infected, such as the hygiene level of the operating tools or hands that are directly in contact with your wound site. It is crystal clear that the medical team as well as the tools they are using should be at the highest level of hygiene standard however let’s not close our eyes to that possibility especially in some countries out there.

What would i see or feel if my wound is infected?

An infected wound can be diagnosed as easy as looking at it. The local effect of infection might cause redness and swelling on your wound site as well as hot incision site.  Also, it is common to have fluid drainage from your wound as long as it is still slightly yellow in color, if the fluids become greenish and smelly, you might want to stop reading this article and see your doctor immediately before it gets worse.

There are also other effects of wound infection that you might feel and they also can cause total discomfort for your body such as feeling of malaise, that is an extreme feeling of tiredness and lack of energy after your wound has been well taken care of, continual and increased pain or fever.

It is very common to undergo a certain level of pain if you just went through a surgery or you just cut your skin, however your body is created amazingly with the ability to heal especially with the right medical treatment. Hence, normally the rating of pain you are feeling should decrease from day to day basis after your surgery. So if the pain you feel is continual or even worse, increasing, it is probably because an infection has occurred.

Why an infected wound can cause fever?

Fever its self as we all aware is not a disease, it is more to a reaction made by our body to alarm us that we are underlying a condition most of times, infection. Even though mild fever for most of adult is not a dangerous situation, however it can causes discomfort for your body.

Many medical practitioner have said that fever is a natural way of defense that our body makes when it detects some infection caused by unidentified objects that are present inside our body such as but not limited to metal, mercury, or bacteria, viruses and others. So when you have an open wound and it is touched by bacteria or germs, they become the unidentified object to your body that can cause infection and fever eventually.

How to avoid and heal fever that is caused by infection?

If you have been informed by your doctor after you were dismissed from the hospital where your surgery was performed that you might have a mild fever and if it did happened you have to take some medicine, means you can wave your worry good bye. However, you might have heard that prevention is better than a cure. So there are several simple steps that you can follow if you just accidentally cut your skin or you were just dismissed from a hospital with a post-surgery status.

First and the most important thing is to remember always keep your wound clean. For a first aid at home after a minor accident, you might need to wash the germs away with water and soap, it can also lower the risk of infection. If you feel you need to go to a hospital for a better treatment, please do so and once you are in a hospital, they might need to check your wound and slightly cut open a part of your wound to clean it better with germs-killing solution, and topped with band aid.

However, if the infection has occurred antibiotic is usually needed to weaken or even killed the germs and bacteria. Consuming some immune booster can also help to make your body heal faster over the infection. In some hospitals, they will need to take samples out of your infection tissue to see what type of antibiotic is suitable since consuming the wrong antibiotic will only make your body is immune to a certain type of bacteria but not to the one causing the infection.

If your infection has caused hyperthermia or fever to your body, a traditional way of putting a warm cloth on your forehead or armpit might be the first and easiest aid you can get before consuming medication contains with paracetamol. However, seeing your doctor at this stage is considerably necessary as we have discussed above that fever is only the symptom not the disease, so the infection that is causing the fever has to be well taken care of in order to get rid of your symptom.