A lot of people may not know and be aware of what the medical term gangrene means. Gangrene refers to the death or decay of a tissue or an organ in a person’s body, which is precipitated by lacking blood supply (MediResource; Greenfield and Shaikh). It results from different kinds of conditions, including infections, inflammation, injury, blood clots, frostbite, severe burns, infected wounds, appendicitis, and some other diseases.
Gangrene can affect any part of the body, but the most common areas of the body that can be inflicted by gangrene include the toes, fingers, feet, hands, and even other parts such as the intestine and abdomen (Greenfield and Shaikh). There are three main kinds of gangrene: moist, dry, and gas gangrene. The moist kind of gangrene is mostly prevalent in the toes, feet, or legs after an injury or as a result of some factors that cause the blood flow to a certain area to stop suddenly, causing that part of the body to swell because of bacterial infection.
When the blood stops flowing to a certain body part, the bacteria will start to attack the muscles and thrive and multiply quickly with no intervention from the body’s immunity system. Moist gangrene has several symptoms, one of which is that the affected area becomes swollen and numb. The part inflicted with moist gangrene is also extremely painful and produces a foul smelling odor. The affected part also changes its color to black, and the person gets a fever.
Treatment of moist involves a surgical method wherein the dead tissues of the wound are removed, and intravenous antibiotics are given “intravenously, intramuscularly, or topically” to the patient to stop and cure the infection (Prinalgin). Second type of gangrene is dry gangrene. It is a kind of gangrene wherein one or more arteries become blocked or obstructed, resulting in the reduction of the vital blood flow to a certain area or part of the body.
The affected area turns cold and initially will turn into color red. Later on, the affected area results in brown discoloration until it turns into black and starts to dry out and shrink or shrivel up. Dry gangrene usually manifests in people with a blocked artery that is usually connected to diabetes. In the case of dry gangrene, healthy tissues will be separated from the dying tissue by a red line on the skin.
The certain region or affected area can be very painful during the early stages of the condition as it becomes numb and pale before it undergoes color change from brown to black. As a result, this certain tissue falls off after a while. Since the cause of dry gangrene is lack of blood flow, it is therefore essential to restore the blood supply of the person who has dry gangrene. A vascular surgeon can help to decide whether surgical intervention for restoring the blood supply would be beneficial to the patient or not (Greenfield and Shaikh).