Marion Wound Center putting its best foot forward

The Marion County Wound Healing Center, a subsidiary of Marion Regional Healthcare, is hoping that everyone will make an extra special effort to make a stand for their feet.

April is American Podiatric Medical Association’s National Foot Health Awareness Month and the Marion County Wound Center is hoping to raise awareness that people, more specifically diabetics, take a minute to assess their foot health.

The wound center treats chronic foot and leg wounds that are often caused by underlying conditions such as diabetes that have not healed in 30 days or more.

Dr. Robert Vyge, medical director of the Marion center, said having a wound center in Marion County that offers the highest quality care to patients is a valuable asset for the entire area.

“It’s less of a drive to have their wounds healed and that’s the most important thing,” Vyge said.

The wound center is part of National Healing Corporation’s nationwide network of wound care researchers and specialists that reports patient treatment outcomes that makes up one of the most comprehensive databases in the world.

“The statistics are truly startling when you realize that approximately every six minutes each and every day someone with diabetes loses a limb,” Dr. Scott Covington, Corporate Medical Director with National Healing Corporation said in a press release.

Those kind of statistics, plus the information shared via the database, allows the wound center treat its patients successfully.

One of the state-of-the-art treatments being offered is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO).

HBO increases the amount of oxygen in the patient’s blood, which in turn travels through plasma into the wound more easily to heal it.

Vyge said that HBO can be helpful to treat difficult ulcers when standard therapy doesn’t work and is considered an add-on therapy.

There may be more than one successful treatment available for a diabetic patient with a foot ulcer but one treatment costs half as much as the other and information in the database shows that.

“It’ll show us the best way to treat a foot ulcer and the fastest most successful way to heal an ulcer in the most cost-effective way,” Vyge said.

Although patients can be referred by a physician perspective patients can also schedule an appointment without any referral.

Lucius Dykes, of Dillon, said he was told by more than one physician that a pressure ulcer on his heel was so bad his leg would have to be amputated.

Dykes hasn’t been able to walk in two months but things are looking up for him since he started coming to the wound center and now he is on the road to recovery, with his leg.

“When I came here the nurses and doctors said they could help and that was great news for me,” Dykes said. “I’m grateful for a place like this.”

Ronnie Garris, of Lake View, is a Type II diabetic and last summer he organized an outing at a Myrtle Beach water park with his church but came back with a surprise.

As a diabetic Garris has little to no feeling in his feet, but when he returned home from the park he discovered he had second and third degree burns on the bottom of his feet.

Since December he has been coming to the wound center once a week for treatment and said that he is getting better and better and is thankful the facility is close to his home.

“I was going to have to go to Florence and that’s a long ride,” he said. “Especially when gas is as high as it is,”

Vyge said that one thing that he hears a lot from patients is that they never felt anything wrong with their feet and he said that they may not feel pain. 

“If you don’t look at the bottom of your feet you could be missing the start of an ulcer,” he said. “Make sure to look under your feet, use a mirror if you have to, and have good footwear and always wear shoes and socks.”