Superglue for emergency wound care

[rickboone1]

i've used it for years. most recently i was driving my truck and reached into my bag to find a loose razor blade. super glue came in handy. there was a lot of studies done by ER departments a while back about the effectiveness of this. all was pretty positive.

[eastomjac]

it works.i also carry an emergancy suture kit in my fa pak

[Cogwulf]

I've never done it myself, but I've heard stories of a friend of a friend is incredibly who accident prone and also gets into a lot of fights, and he has apparently glued most of his face back together over the years, and has also glued his own bones back together.

[ouch]

Krazy glue for cuts. Tough guys, eh?

Why, in the old days we used to cauterize them with a soldering iron.

[jonty]

yea i cut my hand open when i was a teenager pretty deep on razor wire wudnt stop bleeding then i put some super glue in it and it sealed right up awsome stuff

[Slash McCoy]

, and has also glued his own bones back together.

That's pretty hard-core.

[smalltank]

Alot of the OCD karate guys in my class used to use superglue to close their open dry feet areas...my friend was an MD who was also in my classes..he said..there isnt any proof to using it and experiencing anything dangerous from it...yet.

[Slash McCoy]

Of course if you really want to be prepared: http://www.amazon.com/Surgical-Dispo...d_sim_indust_2

35 staples ought to gitter done unless you are like decapitated or something.

[BingeAndPurge]

Just sliced my finger to the bone. Superglued it and splinted it with a popsicle stick. Just waiting on the wife to get home from work now and take over kid duty so I can hit the ER.

[Slash McCoy]

Just sliced my finger to the bone. Superglued it and splinted it with a popsicle stick. Just waiting on the wife to get home from work now and take over kid duty so I can hit the ER.

You, sir, are a dedicated experimenter. I would have probably have merely conjectured the outcome and relied on the experience of others, before sacrificing my finger in the name of science. My hat is off to you. And your finger.

Have you tried this on an ear or your nose? We wait patiently, with inquiring minds.

[ouch]

You, sir, are a dedicated experimenter. I would have probably have merely conjectured the outcome and relied on the experience of others, before sacrificing my finger in the name of science. My hat is off to you. And your finger.

Have you tried this on an ear or your nose? We wait patiently, with inquiring minds.

Don't tell him you performed your own heart surgery at home.

[Go West Young Man]

Extra points for taking the time to liveblog the experience for us!

[BingeAndPurge]

The PA came in and is pretty baffled. It isnt bleeding in the slightest.

[Wendy]

I am going to try this on my fingers when they rip open from chemicals drying them out.

[Greg1911]

Don't tell him you performed your own heart surgery at home.

Heart surgery pppbbbbhhhhtttttt.

I've done my own brain surgery and show zero signs of dain bramage.

[Jim]

The real danger of this is trapping bacteria and or debris under the skin. Flushing the injury with sterile saline and removing debris in the area is the differences of first aid and medical treatment from where I stand. I am sure that there are other opinions .

Once more the B&B recommends you seek the best medical advice from a licensed medical professional in person, rather that the worst place..the internet.

[mongoose]

Treating a laceration with Superglue is safe and is used in the medical field known as Dermabond. The only difference between the two is Dermabond is packaged in and with sterile controls and the glue is not.

Please read!!! Dermabond as well as Superglue SHOULD NEVER BE USED AROUND THE EYE OR MOUTH.

[TonyH]

Every chef and professional cook I know has at least one tube in their knife roll.

[Xury]

The real danger of this is trapping bacteria and or debris under the skin. Flushing the injury with sterile saline and removing debris in the area is the differences of first aid and medical treatment from where I stand. I am sure that there are other opinions .

+1. I think you have to weigh the pros and cons. Bleed out versus potential infection. Potential infection is a serious and viable threat when considering this emergency first aid situation, and has the potential to cause abscesses and/or other more serious complications.

Or so I've been told.

[Domminigan]

From:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...nds-in-vietnam


Cyanoacrylates were invented in 1942 by Dr. Harry Coover of Kodak Laboratories during experiments to make a special extra-clear plastic suitable for gun sights.

The use of cyanoacrylate glues in medicine was considered fairly early on. Eastman Kodak and Ethicon began studying whether the glues could be used to hold human tissue together for surgery. In 1964 Eastman submitted an application to use cyanoacrylate glues to seal wounds to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Soon afterward Dr. Coover's glue did find use in Vietnam--reportedly in 1966 cyanoacrylates were tested on-site by a specially trained surgical team, with impressive results. According to an interview with Dr. Coover by the Kingsport Times-News:

Coover said the compound demonstrated an excellent capacity to stop bleeding, and during the Vietnam War, he developed disposal cyanoacrylate sprays for use in the battle field.
"If somebody had a chest wound or open wound that was bleeding, the biggest problem they had was stopping the bleeding so they could get the patient back to the hospital. And the consequence was--many of them bled to death. So the medics used the spray, stopped the bleeding, and were able to get the wounded back to the base hospital. And many, many lives were saved," Coover said.
"This was very powerful. That's something I'm very proud of--the number of lives that were saved," he said.
Ironically, the Food & Drug Administration hadn't given approval for the medical use of the compound at that point. But the military used the substance, anyway (reference 1).

Although cyanoacrylate glues were useful on the battlefield, the FDA was reluctant to approve them for civilian use. In part, this was due to a tendency of the early compounds (made from "methyl-2-cyanoacrylate") to irritate the skin as the glue reacted with water and cured in the skin, releasing cyanoacetate and formaldehyde. A compound called "butyl-2-cyanoacrylate" was developed to reduce toxicity, but suffered from brittleness and cracking a few days after application. Finally an improved cyanoacrylate glue was developed for medical applications called "2-octyl-cyanoacrylate." This compound causes less skin irritation and has improved flexibility and strength--at least three times the strength of the butyl-based compound (reference 2). As a result, in 1998 the FDA approved 2-octyl cyanoacrylate for use in closing wounds and surgical incisions, and in 2001 approved it for use as a "barrier against common bacterial microbes including certain staphylococci, pseudomonads, and Escherichia coli" (reference 2). This latest incarnation was marketed under the name Traumaseal as well as the more popular Dermabond.