My wife had to go in for an operation on her lower abdomen. This operation was completely successful, but she was left with a wound about 5 inches long, stapled shut with stainless steel medical staples. They gave her some large adhesive dressings and sent her home to recover. My wife asked me to tend to the wound, and this is the protocol I used:
Get some gauze (unsterile is fine, non-medical gauze is fine. CS is self-sterilising).
Cut a piece to cover the wound.
Either cover the whole gauze with a hypoallergenic adhesive film (the sort that medics use to stick over a wound – this was what we used in my wife’s case), or for smaller injuries, tape the gauze over the wound, allowing small parts of the gauze to show between the sections of surgical tape. You may also use superglue and strips of tissue paper to hold the wound closed if you cannot attend a hospital; I used this on a very deep knife cut, and this was more effective and neater than stitching.
If using the adhesive film, snip a small slit with sharp scissors at the top edge of the wound dressing.
Using a syringe (with a blunt needle or with no needle at all), irrigate the gauze with ISO or sugar-capped CS (gelatin-capped is not advised; cinnamon-capped does work but not quite as well as heat-reduced or glucose-reduced) until the gauze is sopping wet. I actually used ISO, 20ppm.
As often as possible in the next week, several times a day, check the gauze and re-irrigate to keep the gauze as wet as possible. Do not change the dressing unless it comes loose.
After a week, gently remove the dressing (another advantage of this protocol is that the gauze is far less likely to stick to the wound) and examine the wound. Renew the dressing and soak the new gauze if necessary, but you should see visible improvement in the healing process.
Results from the operation wound for my wife, for those interested;
BEFORE: The wound was stapled shut – badly – and small areas of subcutaneous fat (about 2-3 mm) were poking out of the wound between two of the staples. The wound was covered in an adhesive dressing, and the hospital supplied a couple of replacement dressings, which we did not need.
AFTER: On day six, I slowly removed the adhesive dressing and the gauze underneath (which was still wet) peeled off the wound. The area of subcutaneous fat was gone, the whole wound was closed, and the scab peeled off with the gauze, leaving a perfectly-clean, almost completely healed wound. We covered the wound with a dry fresh gauze pad after spraying the skin with CS. A day or so later, the appointment for the removal of the staples came along, and we just re-sprayed the wound line at intervals to ensure that no re-infection took place.
Your mileage may vary, but I would use this protocol every time. We did not see any necessity to explain to the surgeon exactly why the wound healed so fast…