Minor foot infection with scab not healing

[Angelove]

One of my girls got a minor cut on her foot in the end of February, it became slightly inflamed but no black. I treated it with polysporin, preparation H and a neoprene duck shoe changed before bed every night for 3 weeks. Pretty much all of the swelling went down and and the scab was super tiny but would not heal all the way. I figured the duck shoe that got wet during the day and the ointments were possibly keeping it from healing, and so I stopped treating it.
I noticed in the beginning of March that the scab was gone and the cut had opened back up, so I began treating it again in the same way as before and have been doing so for almost 3 weeks now. A scab has formed but the swelling has not gone down completely, only slightly. I thought that there might be infection inside so I peeled the scab, which came off very easily, and found pink new skin underneath. I squeezed the swollen area around the cut pretty thoroughly and nothing came out or changed…I’m just not sure what to do, how to get the swelling down and how to get it to heal all the way..Do I keep treating it with both ointments and leave the shoe on? Do I stop the ointments (after the scab has formed again of course) and keep the shoe on, do I stop all together once the scab has formed (this did not work for me last time)..or is there something else I should do that I have not considered?

…I have attached a photo of her foot before I peeled back the scab, now it is just a little pink indentation..still a little inflamed…

 

[azygous]

You need to clean out all the pus. Try soaking it in warm Epsoms salts to soften the tissue, then squeeze or scrape out the wound, flush well and pack the wound with an antibacterial ointment.

 

[Angelove]

You need to clean out all the pus. Try soaking it in warm Epsoms salts to soften the tissue, then squeeze or scrape out the wound, flush well and pack the wound with an antibacterial ointment.

Thank you for the advice, do you think a half hour soak will do? Also, what is the best way to flush the wound?

 

[Angelove]

Thank you for the advice, do you think a half hour soak will do? Also, what is the best way to flush the wound? And once a scab has formed, will it eventually heal all the way with me treating it this way? Or when should I stop the ointments and shoes?

 

[azygous]

Ten to twenty minutes will be enough to soak. Saline is the best thing to flush a wound with because it retains the ph of the tissue. You can easily make your own from recipes on the internet.