Any medical people know about PICO dressings?

[Bsmirched]

I had a PICO dressing put on a chest drain wound on Friday. When I went to bed at about midnight last night, the air leak light started flashing. We've tried all the trouble-shooting tips, but we can't sort it. My GP isn't open now til Wednesday - do I need to go down the road to hell that is 111/A&E or just disconnect the pump and leave it alone? The wound is dry and clean, just been refusing to heal from 2cm with Aquacel(?) and normal dressings.

Go to a walk-in, I don’t think leaving it or turning it off is the way forward. The aquacel dressings I found just prolonged healing when I had a 2 inch deep hole down my leg.

If it’s dry and clean I would just keep it covered. Pico are great from keeping exudate away from the wound. If there isn’t any I would wait for normal access to wound care team, unless something changes.

when I had a pico dressing if I moved the wrong way, the suction would stop and it would just buzz and flash at me. I found the trick to get it pumping again was to just try and reposition myself so that it got going again… not easy though and used to drive me mad at times!

@Mrsklg yes it was doing that quite a bit yesterday, but now it's just not playing at all!
@Cherrysoup @Scrambledchickens thank you for replying. Please don't take this the wrong way, but are you medics? I really need a professional viewpoint!

Then go to a walk-in or A&E.

@Cherrysoup you see, I knew someone would take offence. My post title literally mentioned medical people!

I did thank you for replying, but was just hoping that someone with knowledge of wound dressings might pass by and give an opinion. Our nearest walk-in/A&E is 25 miles away and I can only imagine what the wait times might be. It's my late sister's birthday today and my nephew is coming round shortly to raise a glass with us as he has no other family, added to which I was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer 3 weeks ago and have no idea if this is my last Christmas, so you can maybe see why I don't want to wait several hours in hospital if it's perfectly safe just to be told I could safely have just left the dressing undisturbed.

I haven’t ‘taken offence’ but if you want a medical opinion, you’ll be told on here to go to the walk-in. Nobody can give definitive answers without looking at it, not even a doctor.

I would try and get a message to your local district nurse team. Or call the local walk in and ask if anyone has experience there with pico dressings. It's unlikely.

Agree that district nurse team should be around who will be adept at d/w picco dressings. Battery hasn’t gone has it ? It’s not blocked anywhere ?

Who put the PICO on? Do you have open access to the ward? I’m a district nurse, I can’t see a&e helping. I think you’d struggle get a DN out today to be honest.

Thinking about it, if it was applied post op on a ward maybe you could contact them ?

It was applied by my practice nurse. I'm 6 weeks post op so no access to ward. I live in Shropshire, 25 miles from nearest walk in etc.

You'll be fine to leave it with the wound covered until you can speak to practice nurse tomorrow

Do you have any tape to try and seal the edges down?

Bsmirched

Lie down on the bed and press down around the sides of the dressing. When you get to the point of where the leak is, the pico should turn back on. The green light will flash.
Reinforce this area of the dressing. If the area where the leak is reinforce/sealed then it will work.

Taz.

Thank you everyone.