11. Slow healing of cuts and wounds
Cuts and wounds that don’t heal are signs that something is wrong with your health. The body’s self-healing processes are an indicator of your overall health. Within minutes of sustaining a cut or wound, the body acts immediately to begin healing it. When your body doesn’t respond this way, you need to establish the underlying cause. It could be a suppressed immune system, chronic blood circulation condition, or iron-deficiency anemia.
Wound healing is characterized by four distinct stages. The bleeding stage takes place when the wound occurs. Your body sends clotting agents to the site of the wound to stop the bleeding. During the inflammatory phase is when a scab is formed to protect the wound from the outside. The wound must be protected from infection. The proliferative stage follows. This is when the body is healing the damaged cells. In the final stage, called remodeling, the skin is healed, and the scab falls off as protection is no longer needed.
If you see these symptoms after a cut or wound, your body could be experiencing problems with self-healing. They include swelling around the wound site, and excessive fluids leaking from the wound that is an unusual color and may smell rotten. The site of the wound will feel hot all the time, and you will experience increased pain at or around the wound site.
When cuts and wounds don’t heal, it can be a sign of sustained high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar levels can cause a condition called neuropathy. This is nerve damage caused by too much glucose in the blood. This causes blood circulation problems. The healing processes are slowed down if the body cannot deliver what is required for healing to the site of the wound.