After Trauma Surgery: Circulation and Nerve Checks, Infection Signs and When to Call

The nurse comes back for the fourth time in two hours. She presses on the nail of your big toe, waits for the pink to return, asks you to wiggle it, then runs a fingertip along the top of your foot and asks whether you can feel it. You did not choose this operation. A ladder, a wet road, a moment of inattention chose it for you, and now a plate and a row of screws hold your leg together.

That repeated toe-pressing is not fussiness. It is the front line against trauma surgery complications, the small set of problems that turn a well-fixed fracture into a second emergency if nobody notices in time. Most of them announce themselves through the limb itself, through the wound, or through the body’s temperature and breathing.

This article explains what those checks are looking for, what ordinary healing looks like against what does not, and exactly when the phone call to your team should not wait until morning.

What do trauma surgery complications include, and how common are they?

Trauma surgery is the branch of surgery that repairs injuries caused by force: fractures, dislocations, torn blood vessels, damaged organs. Orthopedic trauma, the focus here, means operations on broken bones and the tissues around them. A complication is any unwanted event that arises from the injury or the operation rather than from the healing you expected.

The list that matters to a patient is short. Problems with blood supply to the limb. Problems with the nerves that give it feeling and movement. Compartment syndrome, a dangerous build-up of pressure inside a muscle group. Infection at the wound or around the metalwork. Blood clots in the deep veins of the leg that can travel to the lungs. Sepsis, the body’s runaway response to infection. Bleeding under the skin or into a joint. Slower concerns such as delayed bone healing sit further down the road and are a separate conversation with your surgeon.

How common are they? Surgical site infection, the best-counted one, develops in roughly 1 to 3 of every 100 people who have surgery according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, with higher risk after open fractures where bone has broken the skin. Precise figures for the others depend heavily on the injury, the person and the operation, which is why honest surgeons quote ranges rather than promises.

Two facts shape everything that follows. First, trauma patients did not arrive at the operating room fasted, rested and optimized; the injury itself has already stressed the body. Second, the most serious limb complications are time-sensitive, measured in hours, not days. That combination is why the checks described next are frequent, repetitive and taken seriously by everyone on the ward.

What actually happens during trauma surgery, and why it shapes recovery

The goal of most orthopedic trauma operations is to put the broken pieces back into alignment and hold them still long enough for bone to knit. Surgeons call this reduction and fixation. Reduction means realigning the fragments; fixation means holding them there with plates, screws, rods placed inside the bone, or an external frame with pins that pass through the skin.

Getting there involves cutting through skin, fat and muscle, pulling tissues aside, and drilling into bone. Every one of those steps has a downstream echo. Swelling follows any cut, and swelling inside a tight muscle compartment is the seed of compartment syndrome. Nerves lie close to bone in the wrist, elbow, knee and ankle, so stretching or pressure during the repair can leave them temporarily stunned. Metal near the skin surface is a place bacteria can settle. Lying still on a table, then in a bed, slows blood flow in the calves, which is how clots begin.

Anesthesia matters too. Many trauma operations are done under general anesthesia, sometimes combined with a regional block, an injection that numbs the nerves to one limb for hours. A block is valuable for pain, but it also means the leg or arm feels numb and heavy for a while afterwards, which is exactly why nurses need to know when the block was placed before they interpret a nerve check.

Some injuries are handled in stages. A badly swollen ankle or a pelvis in an unstable patient may first get a temporary external frame, with the definitive plate placed days later once swelling settles and the body is steadier. Knowing whether your repair is finished or is one step of two changes what to expect from the coming week.

Who is operated on right away, and who is asked to wait

Not every fracture goes to the operating room the day it happens, and patients often read a delay as neglect. Usually it is the opposite.

Surgery moves quickly when delay itself causes harm. Open fractures, where bone has pierced the skin, are washed out and stabilized early because exposed bone invites infection. Fractures with a lost pulse or a dislocated joint pressing on nerves are reduced urgently to restore blood flow. Established compartment syndrome is treated as an emergency at any hour. Hip fractures in older adults are generally repaired within a day or two because prolonged bed rest brings its own dangers of pneumonia, pressure injuries and clots.

Surgery is deliberately delayed in other situations. When soft tissue around an ankle or heel is swollen and blistered, cutting through it risks a wound that will not close; surgeons often wait a week or more, with the limb elevated, until skin wrinkles reappear. When a patient has bled heavily or has a head, chest or abdominal injury, the priority is stabilizing breathing and circulation first, with bone work postponed. People taking anticoagulants, medicines that slow clotting, may need time for the effect to fade or be reversed, a decision made by the surgical and medical teams together, never by the patient.

Some fractures never need an operation at all. Many wrist, collarbone and simple ankle breaks heal well in a cast or brace. The decision weighs the pattern of the break, the person’s age and activity, other health conditions and the risks of anesthesia. If you are asked to wait, ask what the team is waiting for. There is nearly always a specific reason, and hearing it makes the delay far easier to bear.

Why nurses keep checking circulation: the CSM routine explained

Ask a ward nurse what CSM stands for and you will hear it without hesitation: circulation, sensation, movement. Together these three form the neurovascular check, a quick assessment of whether blood and nerve signals are still reaching the far end of the operated limb.

The circulation part looks at five things. Color: the toes or fingers should be pink, not white, blue or purple. Warmth: compared with the other side, the limb should feel similar to touch. Capillary refill: press the nail bed until it blanches, release, and the color should return in about two seconds. Pulse: at the top of the foot or the inside of the ankle, or at the wrist, a pulse should be felt or found with a small handheld Doppler. Swelling: some is expected, but a limb that is visibly tightening in the dressing or cast is not.

Why so often? Because circulation can be compromised by things that happen after the operation, not during it. A cast or bandage that fit perfectly at midnight can become a tourniquet by dawn as swelling rises. A small bleed into a closed space can compress a vessel. Early on, checks may come every hour or two, then space out as the picture settles, according to your team’s protocol.

You can help. Tell staff if the limb feels tighter, colder or more numb than it did an hour ago. Keep it elevated at or slightly above heart level unless told otherwise, which drains swelling by gravity. Do not push a fingertip under a cast to scratch; if the padding bunches, it adds pressure. Once home, the same check belongs to you and whoever is helping you, and the next sections explain what each part means.

Nerve checks: what they test and what a change means

Sensation and movement are the S and M of the neurovascular check, and they test the nerves rather than the blood vessels, though the two often fail together.

For sensation, the nurse touches specific patches of skin that each belong to a particular nerve. On the foot, the web between the first and second toes reports on the deep peroneal nerve; the sole reports on the tibial nerve. On the hand, the tip of the little finger belongs to the ulnar nerve, the tip of the index finger to the median nerve, and the back of the hand near the thumb to the radial nerve. A light touch is compared with the other side. Pins and needles, dullness, or an area that feels like cardboard are all worth reporting.

For movement, you will be asked to pull your toes up toward your shin, push them down, spread your fingers, make a fist, or lift your thumb toward the ceiling. Each action isolates one nerve. Weakness that was not there before the operation is a finding, not a nuisance.

Interpretation depends on context. A regional anesthetic block will make the limb numb and weak for hours, and staff record when it was placed and when it is expected to wear off. Numbness that outlasts the expected duration, or that appears after the block had clearly worn off, is the signal that prompts a call to the surgeon.

Increasing numbness paired with mounting pain is the combination that worries clinicians most, because it can be the early face of compartment syndrome, discussed next. By contrast, a small patch of dulled skin beside the incision, which may persist for months, is common and usually reflects tiny skin nerves cut during the approach. Your team will tell you which pattern yours fits.

Compartment syndrome after fracture: the complication that hides behind pain

Muscles in the arms and legs sit inside compartments wrapped by fascia, a tough connective tissue sheath that does not stretch. Compartment syndrome occurs when bleeding or swelling inside one of these sheaths raises pressure so high that blood can no longer flow into the muscle. Without flow, muscle and nerve begin to die, and the NHS describes acute compartment syndrome as a medical emergency requiring urgent surgery.

It follows fractures most often in the lower leg and forearm, and it can develop after the bone has been perfectly fixed, because fixing bone does not shrink swelling. Crush injuries, tight casts and prolonged pressure on a limb raise the risk.

The earliest sign is pain out of proportion to the injury, pain that keeps climbing despite prescribed pain relief and elevation, and that flares sharply when the muscle is gently stretched, for example when someone pulls your toes upward. The compartment may feel tense and wooden. Numbness and tingling follow. Pallor, weakness and loss of pulse are late signs; waiting for them means waiting too long. MedlinePlus notes that pain that is worse than expected and gets worse rather than better is the hallmark.

Diagnosis is clinical, sometimes supported by measuring pressure inside the compartment with a needle gauge. Treatment is fasciotomy, an operation that cuts the fascia open along the length of the compartment to release the pressure. The wounds are usually left open for days and closed or grafted later. It looks alarming and it saves limbs.

If you are at home in a cast or splint and pain accelerates rather than eases over hours, loosen nothing yourself beyond what you were instructed, elevate the limb no higher than heart level, and seek emergency care. This is one of the few situations after surgery where hours truly count.

Signs of infection after surgery: normal healing versus trouble

Every incision is inflamed at first. Inflammation is how healing begins, so a degree of redness, warmth, tenderness and swelling along the wound edge in the first few days is expected, not alarming. The skill is in noticing when that picture changes direction.

A surgical site infection is an infection in the skin, the deeper tissue, or the space around implanted metal where the operation was performed. Johns Hopkins Medicine and MedlinePlus both describe the typical window as within 30 days of surgery, or up to a year when an implant is in place, because bacteria can settle slowly on metal.

Normal: redness confined to a thin band beside the incision that fades over a week; mild warmth; a small amount of clear or pale pink fluid on the dressing in the first day or two; bruising that yellows and spreads downward with gravity; itching as skin knits.

Concerning: redness that widens day by day or marches away from the wound in a streak; heat you can feel through the dressing; thick, cloudy, yellow or green drainage, especially with an odor; wound edges that gape or reopen; a fever, or chills and shaking; pain that had been improving and turns back the other way.

Open fractures, diabetes, smoking, poor nutrition and long operations raise risk. Infection around metalwork is harder to clear, because bacteria form a protective film on the implant, and can require repeat surgery to wash out the joint or remove hardware. That is why teams act on early signs rather than waiting to see.

Do not apply creams, powders or home remedies to a surgical wound unless instructed. Keep the dressing dry, wash your hands before touching it, and photograph the wound daily in the same light so that change is visible rather than remembered.

Blood clot after surgery: deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and why walking matters

Blood clots after orthopedic trauma are a two-part story. The first part happens in the deep veins of the calf or thigh, where sluggish flow allows blood to gel into a clot, a deep vein thrombosis or DVT. The second part happens if a piece breaks free and travels to the lungs, a pulmonary embolism. Mayo Clinic lists surgery, injury and prolonged immobility among the leading triggers for both.

Fractures of the hip, pelvis and lower leg carry particular risk, because the injury itself damages veins, the operation adds inflammation, and the patient then lies still. Age, obesity, cancer, pregnancy, hormone therapy and a previous clot each add to it.

A DVT usually shows itself as swelling in one leg, often the calf, with aching or cramping that is hard to explain, warmth and sometimes a reddish or darkened color of the skin. The catch after limb surgery is that the operated leg is already swollen and sore. What distinguishes a clot is change: a calf that becomes noticeably larger or firmer than it was, pain that appears behind the knee or in the thigh rather than at the incision, or symptoms in the leg that was not operated on.

Pulmonary embolism is the reason clots are taken seriously. Sudden shortness of breath, chest pain that sharpens on breathing in, a racing heart, coughing up blood, faintness or a sense of dread are emergency symptoms.

Prevention rests on three legs. Moving early: ankle pumps in bed, standing and walking as soon as the team allows, because calf muscles are the pump that returns blood to the heart. Mechanical measures: compression stockings or inflatable calf sleeves in hospital. Medicines: anticoagulants, which slow the clotting process, are prescribed for many trauma patients for a period after surgery. Whether you need one, which one and for how long are decisions for your surgical team, weighed against your bleeding risk.

When infection turns into sepsis

Sepsis is not a different germ. It is the body’s own immune response spiraling out of control in reaction to an infection, damaging organs far from where the infection began. It can follow a wound infection, a chest infection from lying still, a urinary infection from a catheter, or an infected line. The NHS describes it as life-threatening and stresses that it can be hard to spot, because early sepsis can resemble flu or a stomach bug.

Why does it belong in an article about trauma surgery? Because trauma patients carry several risk factors at once: open wounds, implanted metal, catheters and drains, blood loss, and a body already inflamed by injury. Older adults, people with diabetes or weakened immunity, and those who recently spent time in intensive care are at higher risk.

The features that should make anyone stop and act, drawn from NHS guidance, are: confusion, slurred speech or unusual drowsiness; severe breathlessness or breathing very fast; skin that looks mottled, blotchy, blue, gray or unusually pale; a rash that does not fade when a glass is rolled over it; shivering or muscle pain with a fever or, in some people, a very low temperature; not passing urine for many hours. In children and older adults the picture is often quieter, with lethargy and reduced eating or drinking as the first hints.

Sepsis is treated in hospital with intravenous fluids, antibiotics chosen for the likely source, oxygen and close monitoring, sometimes in intensive care. Time matters, which is why the message from every major health body is the same: if someone who has recently had surgery becomes confused, breathless, mottled or hard to rouse, this is an emergency, and the right words to use are “could this be sepsis?”

Nerve damage after surgery: is it temporary?

Numbness, tingling or weakness after a fracture repair frightens people more than almost anything else, and the honest answer about recovery is: it depends on what happened to the nerve.

Nerves are injured in trauma in three broad ways. The original accident may have stretched, bruised or cut a nerve before any surgeon was involved; a dislocated knee or a shoulder fracture can do this. During the operation, a nerve may be stretched by retractors or pressed on for a long time, leaving it stunned. After the operation, swelling, a tight cast or a hematoma, a collection of blood under the skin, can compress a nerve.

The mildest form, where the nerve’s insulation is bruised but the fiber itself is intact, typically recovers over days to weeks once the pressure is removed. A more severe stretch that damages fibers but leaves the outer sheath intact regrows slowly, in the order of a millimeter a day, so a nerve injured at the elbow may take many months to reach the fingertips. A fully cut nerve does not recover without surgical repair and may not recover completely even then.

Clinicians distinguish these by examining you over time, and sometimes with nerve conduction studies, tests that measure how fast electrical signals travel along a nerve, usually done some weeks after injury because they are unreliable earlier. Patience is genuinely part of the treatment.

What you can do: report any new numbness or weakness at once, since new deficits after surgery may point to a reversible cause such as pressure. Protect numb skin from heat, cold and friction, because you will not feel a blister forming. Follow the therapist’s program to keep joints mobile while the nerve recovers, so that a regained muscle has a supple joint to move.

What the first days and weeks usually look like after trauma surgery

Recovery rarely runs in a straight line, but it does follow a recognizable shape, and knowing the shape helps you spot a detour.

The first 48 hours are the swelling peak. Pain is at its most demanding, the limb feels heavy and tight, and neurovascular checks are frequent. Bruising blossoms. You may be helped out of bed on the first day, which feels unreasonable and is one of the most protective things that happens.

Days three to seven bring a turning point. Swelling starts to recede, pain requirements fall, and the wound is usually checked or the dressing changed. Bruising spreads and changes color as blood breaks down. This is also the window when a wound infection most often first shows itself, and when a clot may begin to declare in a calf.

Weeks two to six are about protected healing. Stitches or clips typically come out in the second or third week, per your team’s plan. Movement of neighboring joints begins under guidance. Fatigue is normal; bone healing is metabolically expensive. Infection around implants and delayed healing tend to surface later, which is why follow-up X-rays are spaced across this period.

Finding	Usually part of healing	Reason to contact your team
Pain	Eases day by day; responds to prescribed relief and elevation	Climbs despite relief; disproportionate; flares on stretching the muscle
Swelling	Peaks at about 2 days, then slowly recedes	Limb feels rock-hard or the cast tightens; one calf enlarges
Color and warmth	Pink toes or fingers, similar warmth to the other side	Pale, blue, gray or cold digits; refill slower than about 2 seconds
Sensation and movement	Normal once any anesthetic block has worn off	New numbness, tingling or weakness
Wound	Thin rim of redness; small amount of clear fluid early	Spreading redness; cloudy or foul drainage; edges gaping
Temperature	Slightly raised in the first day or two	Fever with chills, or feeling unusually unwell

What people often get wrong about trauma surgery complications

“Pain means the surgery failed.” Pain is expected after bone is cut and drilled. The direction of pain matters far more than its presence. Improving pain, even if slow, is reassuring. Pain that reverses course and climbs, particularly with numbness, is the signal.

“If it were serious, I’d have a fever.” Compartment syndrome and blood clots do not cause fever. Early sepsis may bring a very low temperature rather than a high one, especially in older adults. Waiting for a fever before acting on a tense, painful limb or a breathless episode is a common and dangerous delay.

“Rest is the safest thing.” Immobility is one of the main drivers of clots, pneumonia and muscle loss. Early, guided movement is protective. The limb should be rested and elevated; the person should not be.

“Antibiotics will sort out any wound problem.” Infection around implanted metal often cannot be cleared by antibiotics alone, because bacteria shelter in a film on the implant. Early recognition matters because early, superficial infection is far easier to treat than deep infection.

“Numbness always means permanent nerve damage.” Most nerve symptoms after fracture surgery are from bruising or pressure and improve over weeks. Only examination over time can tell which kind you have.

“Bruising spreading down the leg is a bad sign.” Gravity pulls broken-down blood downward; a bruise from a hip operation can reach the knee. Spreading bruise color is different from spreading redness with heat.

“I should hold off on the pain medication so I can tell if something is wrong.” Uncontrolled pain limits movement and breathing, both of which protect you. Take medicines as prescribed and report pain that breaks through; that pattern is itself useful information for your team.

“Once I’m home, the checks stop.” Most complications declare themselves after discharge. The CSM check belongs to you now.

Questions to ask your care team

The best time to ask is before discharge, while the person who saw inside your limb is still in the building. Write the answers down; the first week is a poor time to rely on memory.

• Which nerves and blood vessels run close to my fracture, and what specific loss of feeling or movement should I test for at home?
• Was a regional nerve block used, and by what time should sensation have fully returned?
• Is my repair finished, or is this the first of a planned series of operations?
• How much swelling is expected, how long should I elevate the limb each day, and how do I loosen the dressing or splint if it becomes tight?
• How much weight, if any, may I put through the limb, and when will that change?
• What does normal drainage from this wound look like in the first week, and when is the dressing due to be changed?
• Am I on a medicine to prevent blood clots, what is it meant to do, how long will I be on it, and what bleeding signs should I report?
• What is my personal risk of infection, given my health, the type of fracture and whether the skin was broken?
• Which symptoms should prompt a call to the clinic, which should send me to the emergency department, and what number do I call at night or on a weekend?
• When is my first follow-up, and what will you be checking for on the X-ray?
• Are there activities, positions or footwear that put my metalwork or nerve repair at risk?
• Who coordinates my care if I am also seeing another specialist for a head, chest or abdominal injury?

One more question deserves asking out loud even if it feels awkward: “What would make you worried enough to want to see me the same day?” Surgeons have a clear mental picture of the answer, and hearing it in their own words is the most useful safety net you can take home.

When to call your doctor

Some symptoms belong to a routine clinic call. Others should not wait for office hours. Your discharge sheet will have specific instructions and phone numbers; use them. Where instructions and this list differ, follow your team’s instructions.

Seek emergency care immediately (call emergency services or go to the nearest emergency department) if you notice:

• Pain in the operated limb that keeps increasing despite prescribed relief and elevation, especially with tightness, numbness or pain on stretching the muscle. This may be compartment syndrome.
• Toes or fingers that turn pale, blue, gray or cold, or that you cannot move when you could before.
• Sudden shortness of breath, chest pain that sharpens on breathing, coughing up blood, a racing heart or fainting. These may indicate a pulmonary embolism.
• Confusion, slurred speech, extreme drowsiness, mottled or blotchy skin, breathing very fast, or passing no urine for many hours. These are warning signs of sepsis.
• Heavy bleeding that soaks through dressings and does not stop with firm pressure.

Contact your surgical team the same day if you notice:

• Redness that spreads away from the incision, heat over the wound, cloudy or foul-smelling drainage, or wound edges that have opened.
• Fever, chills or shaking, or feeling suddenly and generally unwell.
• One calf or thigh that is newly swollen, firm, warm or painful, in either leg.
• New numbness, tingling or weakness that was not present when you left hospital, or that persists well beyond the time your team said an anesthetic block would wear off.
• A cast or splint that feels tight, has cracked or become soft, or that is rubbing skin raw.
• Unusual bruising or bleeding elsewhere while taking a clot-prevention medicine.

A red flag paragraph in one breath: pain that outgrows its medicine, a limb changing color or losing feeling, spreading heat and discharge at the wound, a swelling calf, breathlessness, or confusion after recent surgery are the signs that need a clinician now, not a wait-and-see. Every decision about what happens next, from a dressing change to a return to the operating room, sits with the team treating you, and calling them early is never the wrong move.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common trauma surgery?

Fracture fixation is the most frequently performed type of orthopedic trauma surgery, and among fractures, repairs of the hip in older adults and of the wrist, ankle and lower leg make up a large share of operating lists. Exact rankings vary by country and hospital and are not tracked in one standard registry, so your surgeon can tell you where your own injury sits in terms of how routinely their team manages it.

What is the most common surgical complication?

It depends how complications are counted. Nausea and vomiting after anesthesia are extremely common but usually brief. Among serious problems, surgical site infection is one of the most frequent, affecting roughly 1 to 3 in 100 surgical patients according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. After fracture surgery specifically, wound infection, blood clots and problems with the limb’s circulation or nerves are the complications teams watch for most closely.

Is trauma surgery critical care?

They overlap but are not the same. Trauma surgery is a surgical specialty focused on repairing injuries. Critical care, or intensive care, is the support of failing organs such as breathing and circulation, delivered in an intensive care unit. Many trauma surgeons also train in surgical critical care, and severely injured patients often move between the operating room and the intensive care unit, which is why the two are frequently housed together.

How long do trauma surgeries take?

There is no single figure, because the range is enormous. A straightforward fixation of a wrist or ankle fracture may take well under two hours including anesthesia, while a complex pelvic reconstruction or a multi-injury case can run much longer and may be split into stages over days. Your surgeon’s estimate for your specific operation is the only reliable guide, and families should expect that estimate to include time for anesthesia and recovery.

What are the signs of infection after surgery on a fracture?

Look for change rather than presence: redness that spreads away from the incision over days, heat over the wound, thick cloudy or yellow-green drainage, an odor, wound edges that gape, fever or chills, and pain that had been improving and then worsens. A thin rim of redness, mild warmth and a little clear fluid in the first days are usually normal healing. Photograph the wound daily so trends are visible.

Can compartment syndrome after fracture happen even after the bone is fixed?

Yes. Fixing the bone does not remove the swelling and bleeding inside the muscle compartments, which is what raises pressure. Compartment syndrome most often follows lower leg and forearm fractures and can develop hours after surgery, sometimes under a cast or dressing. Rising pain that does not respond to prescribed relief, pain on stretching the muscle and increasing numbness need emergency assessment; the NHS classes acute compartment syndrome as a surgical emergency.

How do I tell a blood clot after surgery from normal swelling?

The operated limb is expected to be swollen, so clinicians look for change and asymmetry: a calf or thigh that becomes noticeably larger, firmer or warmer than it was, aching behind the knee or in the thigh rather than at the incision, or new swelling in the leg that was not operated on. Mayo Clinic lists these as typical features of deep vein thrombosis. Any sudden breathlessness or chest pain should be treated as an emergency.

Is nerve damage after surgery permanent?

Usually not, though it depends on the type of injury. Most nerve symptoms after fracture repair come from bruising or pressure and improve over days to weeks once the cause is relieved. A more severe stretch injury regrows slowly, roughly a millimeter a day, so recovery can take many months. A fully cut nerve needs surgical repair. Your team distinguishes these by examining you over time, sometimes with nerve conduction studies after several weeks.

Why do I need blood thinners after trauma surgery?

Fractures of the hip, pelvis and lower leg, combined with surgery and time lying still, sharply raise the risk of deep vein clots that can travel to the lungs. Anticoagulants slow the clotting process to lower that risk during the vulnerable weeks after injury. Whether you need one, which type, and for how long depends on your injury and your bleeding risk, and those decisions rest with your surgical team, who will also tell you which bleeding signs to report.

What should I check at home after fracture surgery?

Run the same check the nurses did, two or three times a day: color and warmth of the toes or fingers compared with the other side, capillary refill in about two seconds, ability to feel a light touch and to move each digit, and whether the limb feels tighter than earlier. Add a look at the dressing for spreading redness or new drainage, and notice any calf swelling, breathlessness or fever. Report change the same day.

References

• MedlinePlus: Compartment syndrome
• MedlinePlus: Surgical wound infection – treatment
• NHS: Compartment syndrome
• NHS: Sepsis

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.