Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Dr. Donald Brown and I’d like to talk to you about care of your Jackson-Pratt drain. The Jackson-Pratt drain has three parts. The first is this part, which is made of silicone and has multiple small holes in it that allows fluid to drain. The second part is the tubing, which is connected to the third part, which is the bulb.
Now, going back to this part – the drain – this is really of no consequence. You’re not going to see this. What you will see is where the tube comes out. This is very, very important to take good care of. Every two to three hours, I would like you to wash this area. Be sure to wash your hands well first, clean this with hydrogen peroxide and then put a layer of antibiotic ointment – Neosporin, Polysporin, doesn’t really matter – around this.
The reason we want to do that is that this tube, which goes into the depth of the body, can be used as a highway for the bacteria to get down into the areas that we really don’t want them to be because that can cause an infection. By putting an antibiotic seal around this, we can prevent that.
Now, the third part is the bulb. When the bulb looks like this, it is not working. It needs to be collapsed and the way you do that is to squeeze it tight, take this little plug and put it into the hole like that, so that the bulb is collapsed. This is now working. When, again, it looks like that, it is not working. So, again, you squeeze this down, you take the wee tab and put it in the hole, so that this is collapsed.
Now, when there’s about a third to a half full of blood and serous fluid, you need to drain it and the way you do that is, again, wash your hands, pop the top off and if you look carefully at the bulb, you’ll see there is a series of rings with numbers – 25, 50, 75 and 100. What you’re going to do is look at the level of the fluid and make a note of it and jot it down. Then you drain this down the toilet. You squeeze this back, you put the top back in. Voila, you’re back in business.
At 9 o’clock in the morning, what I’d like you to do is to drain this, write the numbers down, draw a line and add all those numbers for the past 24 hours. This will be your 9 o’clock/24 hour number and this needs to be either texted to the office or called into the office or to my cellphone. Should you have any problems or concerns, please do not hesitate to call the office or after hours and on the weekends, call me on my cellphone. Thank you.
