Dermabond: A Questionable Treatment for Sealing Cuts

Last summer, on a Saturday afternoon inside my house, I rather badly cut my foot (due to a freakish stumble involving a metal step stool). The wound was on the upper part of the foot, between the largest and the adjacent toe. It looked to be a "borderline call" as to whether it would need stitches.

At the nearby hospital's ER, a rather young lady (after cleaning my wound and finally deciding it could heal without stitches) applied some of this "Dermabond" compound. I initially trusted she was correct regarding its touted efficacy.

Arriving home a short time later, I noticed that yet another fresh white sock was very bloody. I soon discovered that the initially seemingly tight "Dermabond" application hadn't long retained a complete seal; in fact, it had already become somewhat "loose at the edges" at several points. Phoning the ER people, my concern was basically just "pooh-poohed". I was told that my wound would heal all right, even without any antibiotic applications or pills of any sort ("your own immune system will fight any 'bugs', sir!"), and, bottom line, not to worry about the Dermabond application, "just leave it alone", yadda yadda.

Well, among other standard, "canned" advice, the ER people had told me to see my regular physician within three days. Right. Given that the "Dermabond" application was getting looser by the hour while the wound was, of course, far from healed, I saw my regular doc the following Tuesday morn. He agreed I could just remove the barely still adhering Dermabond then and there. (The Dermabond was, by then, an almost totally loose "flap" largely exposing the wound to further damage, dirt and germs!)

Then my doc just liberally applied some ordinary ("over-the-counter" type) antibiotic ointment and tightly wrapped the wound with a lengthy amount of self-adhering ("sticks to itself but not to your skin") cloth bandage, which, a very few days later, I chose to remove to let the wound's edges finally begin the protracted process of "air drying". [Note: Beyond the first two or three days of the healing process, I've never had much success with small wounds fully healing while being tightly enclosed by any bandage; tight bandages generally kept such wounds--at least mine--too moist to heal completely. By contrast, simple "air drying"--such that a hard, protective scab could form--has generally been much more effective, at least for me. But I gather that the medical community doesn't unanimously endorse my opinion about that, so please do listen to your doctor's advice!]

Within two weeks, that unusually "stubborn" wound's edges had finally fully closed to such an extent that they were no longer unduly subject to re-injury, and that vexing little chapter of my life was itself largely closed (other than the subsequent, outrageous bill for the ER's "treatment", etc.).

I suppose there must be certain types of wounds (on less "continually stressed" parts of the body) where Dermabond could adhere at least long (and firmly) enough to be really helpful. But I myself was underwhelmed, to say the least. If the ER people had merely done from the get-go what my regular doctor subsequently did (with some antibiotic ointment and the above-described "wrap"), I would have been better off. The wound could have remained less exposed and much cleaner.

Dermabond is a nice-and-tidy "concept" that is, unfortunately, evidently overused by some hospitals' ER's, etc. Don't necessarily trust it for wounds on those parts of the body (such as feet and hands) that are bound to be continually subject to inescapable, ordinary stress or sweating.