Silver and a few maggots make all the difference
Published: December 8, 2005
A DIABETIC mum yesterday told how a silver bandage helped her battle MRSA.
Isobel McCardle was days from having her leg amputated when docs came up with a way to save it.
They treated it with live maggots and a bandage lined with silver.
Mum-of-four Isobel, 49, from Blantyre, Lanarkshire, said: “To this day, I am still amazed and so thankful that I still have my leg.
“I was gearing up to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair - but thanks to some miracle-working from NHS doctors, I am still intact.” A few months ago, Isobel stepped on an old cotton bud lying on the carpet in her home.
Loss of sensation through diabetes meant she didn’t notice that a bit of it was stuck in her foot, and by the time she was taken to hospital, it was so badly infected she was told her leg would need to be amputated.
Days later, she developed an infection caused by MRSA. Isobel said: “It was so bad you could almost see bone.”
But then podiatrist Professor Duncan Stang had an idea. He used maggots to eat away the infection then wrapped the wound in a revolutionary new bandage called AquacelAg, which is impregnated with particles of silver.
Prof Stang said: “Silver has anti-bacterial properties. It destroyed any bugs in the dressing so they couldn’t get back in the wound.”
Isobel added: “I never thought a few maggots and a bit of silver would have made such a difference
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