Hello. I was reading your blog about your son being in a hip spica cast. My daughter is 2 1/2 and broke her femur April 18th. They hope to be able to take the cast off on June 9th.
The other night she wet through her diaper and got the inside of the cast wet and now it smells bad. What did you do to get the urine smell out of Akira's cast? Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you and hope this email finds you and your family happy and healthy.
S.
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Dear S.:
Thank you for your email. We are now all happy and healthy, thankfully. (And I keep my fingers crossed).
When Akira's diaper leaked into his cast we tried a number of things. First we removed all the moleskin edging, then wiped the cast with a warm, damp cloth. The smell remained, however, so we tried spraying it with Fabreze. This didn't help.
Desperate - our home now smelled like a public urinal - we called Akira's orthopedic surgeon and he recommended, jokingly, that we spray the cast with perfume. The truth is, he told us, there's nothing you can do. So we lit a scented candle and did our best to ignore the stench.
After three days, something miraculous happened: the smell almost totally disappeared. Akira still stank like pee, but you had to be quite close to him to notice it.
I think the cast finally dried out. (It was during the summer, so we had the air conditioner running and trained a fan on Akira while he slept, as it can get very hot and sweaty under the cast.)
-Les
4 comments:
Les, thank you so much for this post and answering questions! Our son is almost 3 1/2; he broke his femur on Wednesday and we are still trying to get into the routine of things. Dealing with the urine in the cast right now and wondering how on earth could there be so much!
I hope Akira and his brothers are continuing to be healthy and whole :-)
Glad my blog has been of help. I highly recommend the following guide to caring for your child's spica cast. It recommends using a hair dryer (on the cold setting) to dry out a wet cast. We tried that and it worked:
http://www.phoenixchildrens.com/emily-center/child-health-topics/handouts/Spica-Care-788.pdf
You can use CastCooler to remove urine and odor from the cast lining. I used it for my 3 year old son Jack, who's in a spica cast, and it helped a lot. You attach it to the cast and it removes moisture. It can also cool down the cast, so it's less uncomfortable to wear in the summer.
If you haven't heard of it: http://www.castcooler.com
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