r/nursing • u/PotatoPirate_625 RN - Telemetry 🍕 • Jun 03 '25

Nursing Hacks THANK YOU, NURSES OF REDDIT!!!!!

TW Grossness

A looooooooooong time ago when I was a wee child in my teens with no aspirations of nursing, my mom (an ER nurse) told me about the awful smell permeating the ER while she was eating dinner that shift. Turns out, the patient who had just arrived had diabetes. Due to the diabetic neuropathy, they hadn't noticed the MAGGOTS in their legs wounds and no one knew they were present until a FLY flew out of the dressing.

Needless to say, I was disgusted and intrigued.

Fast forward to yesterday. I've been a nurse for three years and a member of this sub since nursing school (thanks to my husband who set up my Reddit and subscribed me so I'd have more elevated social media). I've learned many interesting, hilarious, stomach churning, and useful things from this sub. However, I've never been more grateful than yesterday, when one of my baby nurse besties starts talking about the maggots on the sheets of her new patient. My ears prick up because 1) I remember my mom's story and 2) I recall an Einstein level tip from a post I saw here.

See, because of one wonderful Reddit poster, I know now the best way to clean maggots out of a wound is to cut the tip off a Yankauer and suck the gross little bastards out of the way. Because I have this knowledge, I VOLUNTEERED to do this and help the newbie so she wouldn't have to deal with it alone. (I'm also working on my WOC certification and I figured trial by fire would be good for me). REGARDLESS, I am clearly the GodMutti of all baby nurses, a brilliant, selfless human, and also a secondhand genius. I might have to get myself a badge reel proclaiming so.

I cannot thank all of you enough for the laughs and amazing nursing information you provide here. Thank you so so so much. I wouldn't survive the world of nursing without you. ❤️

TLDR: A big heartfelt thank you to the nurses of Reddit for all I have learned. Especially to the genius with the Yankauer advice. XOXOXOXOXOX

(Also, holy disgusting smells, Batman. Necrotic flesh and maggots is a God awful stench. I swear I had to bleach my nose when I got home).

*Edited cuz sleep deprived me made a grammar mistake and I was annoyed.

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u/johnnyringo1982 Jun 04 '25

Think it would work for maggots in the vagina? I mean, it's too late to worry about it now, but for future reference?

1

u/PotatoPirate_625 RN - Telemetry 🍕 Jun 04 '25

Oh dear Lord. I'm sure it would, but I cannot EVEN FATHOM such a situation. Might need to use the hose and not the Yankauer at that point.

2

u/johnnyringo1982 Jun 04 '25

I'll spare the details, but such a situation did, in fact, arise. Unlike anything I'd ever seen.

1

u/PotatoPirate_625 RN - Telemetry 🍕 Jun 04 '25

Do you know the etiology? I'm guessing a foreign body or something?

1

u/johnnyringo1982 Jun 04 '25

Negative. Neglect, basically. Elder woman, living with kids, totally dependent. They had pretty much left her to die. Weighed about 80 lbs when ems brought her

1

u/PotatoPirate_625 RN - Telemetry 🍕 Jun 05 '25

OMG. Poor woman!