How does an open wound heal and is there anything to speed the process?

Wound healing: In wound care, we ultimately clean the wound and free it of debris and then place a sterile product on the wound to create a moist healing environment. We do this while we treat the underlying cause of the wound: compression for venous ulcers; artery repair for arterial ulcers; pressure redistribution for pressure ulcers, etc.

Wound Healing 101: Wound take anywhere from 3 weeks to 1 year to fully heal. It is dependent on type and location of wound. For basics, keep it clean, washing with soap and water or normal saline, using moist wound healing techniques with ointmnents/gels. Do not allow the wound to "air" out , as this will dry the wound and cause infection. Allowing the normal body process to work is the best treatment.

Superfast healing: The real question is what not to do that slows down healing. Avoid using alcohol, peroxide, hibiclens, betadine, and bleach solutions. Inflammation ( red, hot, swollen, tender) is important to healing so anti-inflammatories (motrin, advil) are bad. Cover the area with a clean dressing changed every other day and protected from trauma. Antibiotics do not help healing unless it is truly infected.