I’ve been talking about how I use IMPACT® in surgical patients who are nutritionally at risk. This is the second patient I tried the approach on. She’s a very beautiful, 33-year-old, previously healthy young woman who developed sepsis with cardiogenic shock and was in the intensive care unit for 3 weeks. She was hypotensive a lot of the time, and unfortunately developed severe pressure injuries to the left heel and lateral foot. She’d only been out of the ICU for 8 weeks when I first saw her in the Wound Clinic. Her calcaneus was exposed under a thick eschar, and tendons were exposed on the lateral foot. She clearly had a limb-threatening lesion, and it was hard to break it to her that she needed to go back in the hospital for a big operation. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it might be a below the knee amputation.
I used skin perfusion pressure to confirm that her arterial supply was adequate, and immediately started her on IMPACT®, an immunonutrition supplement containing L-arginine, omega-3 fatty acids and nucleotides designed to help meet the nutrient needs of major surgical patients. Nestle donated a month supply and she took it faithfully, 2 cartons a day for a month. That’s about all I could do for her since the problem was clearly a surgical one. I referred her to Dr. Efthymios Gkotsoulias, who saved her foot. It was still healed in follow up 4 months later after she’d begun walking on it.
The first time I saw her foot, my heart sank, so when she came by to show me how well she could walk in her brace, I could have cried for joy. I can’t prove that IMPACT® is what made the difference (I mean, she had a great surgeon and she’s an amazing person) but the odds had not been in her favor. I think IMPACT® evened the score.
I’ll provide more detail later about how we’ve protocolized the use of Impact and other nutritional supplements.
If you are a healthcare professional, Nestle’s Medical Hub has excellent educational resources on nutrition and supplementation. Find it here:
https://www.nestlemedicalhub.com/
Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/carolinefifemd/videos
The opinions, comments, and content expressed or implied in my statements are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the position or views of Intellicure or any of the boards on which I serve.
