What dressing is used for a diabetic foot ulcer?

Wet-to-dry dressings are often used first, and dressings containing medicine and skin substitutes are also options. Your provider may use different kinds; whichever is used, keep the ulcer clean and bandaged and the surrounding skin dry.

There’s a common starting point and then a range, and the choice belongs to your provider.

The starting point: wet-to-dry dressings are often used first. Here’s how they work. A wet dressing is applied to the wound. As it dries it absorbs wound material, so when the dressing is removed some of the tissue comes off with it.

Other options include a dressing that contains medicine, and skin substitutes.

Beyond that, your provider may use different kinds of dressings to treat your ulcer. This page won’t recommend a specific product.

Some rules apply whichever dressing is used. Keep the ulcer clean and bandaged. Cleanse the wound daily, using a wound dressing or bandage. Keep the dressing and the skin around it dry, and try not to get healthy tissue around the ulcer too wet from the dressings, because this can soften the healthy tissue and cause more foot problems.

How often to change it is also up to your provider. For a wet-to-dry dressing, your provider will tell you how often you need to change it. You may be able to change your own dressing, family members may be able to help, and a visiting nurse may also help you.

The dressing is not the main event for this wound, and it is worth saying so. Taking pressure off the ulcer is its own part of treatment, and pressure on a healing ulcer for even a few minutes can reverse the healing that happened up to that point. A perfect dressing under a foot that is still bearing weight is not treatment.

What to watch for

Keep the dressing and the skin around it dry. Healthy tissue around the ulcer that gets too wet can soften and cause more foot problems.

Your provider will tell you how often the dressing needs changing.

Signs of infection to contact a provider about: redness, increased warmth, or swelling around the wound; extra drainage; pus; odor; fever or chills; increased pain; increased firmness around the wound. Also if the ulcer is very white, blue, or black.

A dressing does not replace taking pressure off the ulcer, which is a separate and essential part of treatment.

Wound Wizard is general education and cannot choose a dressing for your ulcer. Your own clinician is the right person to ask.

What we look at

  • Examining and measuring the ulcer
  • Choosing the dressing for this wound
  • Setting how often it is changed
  • Teaching the dressing change or arranging a nurse

Sources

  1. Diabetes - foot ulcers — MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000077.htm
  2. Wet-to-dry dressing changes — MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000315.htm