I have heard of cartorizing (sp?) Hypothetically speaking, is it possible to "dry ice" the wound?
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Cauterization is done to control blood loss, and it uses electricity or a laser to produce heat which will essentially cook the blood and instantly clot it off. It's not used to close a wound, never was actually- even in the old days when they used a hot iron, the wounds were still sewn shut. Dry ice is actually frozen and compressed carbon dioxide, not water- so it's not just a different form of ice as you know it. It would also not freeze a wound, it would burn it. It's a technicality, I realize, and seems opposite of what you expect, but that's what happens. In the process of burning the wound, you would actually just make matters worse because you would damage tissue that wasn't already damaged, and it certainly wouldn't do the injured tissue any good. In the end you would have more scar tissue formed. For brain surgery it makes much better sense to continue to use lasers to cut and cauterize, since you can use a quite narrow beam and direct it with a computer aid, which allows a lot less tissue destruction that you could ever hope for trying to use even the tiniest piece of something like dry ice. One of the latest big advancements in closing wounds uses a form of super glue, to form a closer bond between the skin edges on the surface of the skin. It's still not useful beneath the skin, because the body still deals with it as a foreign object. For deep wounds, you are still stuck with suture material and the old fashioned stitches. But the super glue and spray on skin are good for the surface skin and of course if you eliminate the sutures, you eliminate one element in creating a nasty scar. The final scar is influenced more by your own personal healing pattern, and how much tissue was damaged than how they actually close the wound. After all, there is only so much mechanical repair that can be done, and the healing portion is up to you. If you tend to form keloid scars, all the specialists in the world can't prevent that happening. A scar of some sort is the result of a skin wound, the body's protection device against future injuries at that site. Healing without scarring unfortunately is a subject of science fiction at the moment. Until we figure out how to convince the body to not scar and simply heal, we are going to have scars. But no, dry ice is not the answer.
What sort of wound?
Believe it or not, that's what super glue was developed for... way back in the sixties. It was intended to be used by the military to temporarily repair bleeding wounds. Dry ice? Interesting idea. Unfortunately, I think it would destroy too much tissue.
No. Dry ice would stick to the skin. Trying to pull it back off would just rip the wound back open. Leaving it on would be a temporary fix, but it wouldn't kill the bacteria. It would just delay the infection.
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