(music). Advancements in medical
technology continue to help improve all of our lives.
Today we're focusing at the forefront of wound healing,
dramatic new ways to improve long term recovery and joining
me is Dr. Mark Robbins, an emergency care provider, and
specialist in wound and hyperbaric medicine from Salt
Lake City, Utah, and Marty Smithson, a college student with
his amazing survival story. I just want to welcome you both.
Thank you for being here, and Marty, I want to get right to
you. Alright.
This is a pretty amazing story. You and some buddies thought
you'd just take a little hike in January, in the Utah mountains
and just take me from there. What happened?
It was a crazy day, so it was just a warm day, so I wasn't
really dressed for snow hiking at all.
Right. We went up and it just kind of,
we got stuck in a bad situation, and we eventually got to the
sign and it said that it was like three and a half miles to
keep going forward down the snowy trail.
The snow just got so cold I couldn't feel my feet.
It was ridiculous. My shins got so scraped up, just
from trudging through the snow, and I actually like, we found
this fire. Like, this couple was camping
like a mile from the end. They let me go and warm up my
feet and like, she was like where's your left shoe?
and I didn't even realize I lost my shoe two miles before that,
and my feet were so cold. So, you're walking through the
snow, without a shoe, you probably started out down below,
near BYU in 60 degree weather. How cold is it now?
It was like 20 degrees. So, they let you warm up by the
fire. You continued walking though,
right down by the bottom of the mountain.
Yeah, they tried to carry me at first, because my left foot was
really bad. My right foot, for some reason,
they had one extra, like clean sock, so I was able to help my
right foot, but my left foot was still in pretty bad shape, so
they tried to carry me. That just wasn't working, so I'm
just like, okay, I'm going to have to tough through this, and
put my frozen foot back in my frozen shoe.
Just finish the hike and get to the car.
We called a friend because we finally got cell service.
Doctor, I have to turn to you. I mean, when you saw him, and
you made that initial assessment of him, did you think he could
have a full recovery? What were your thoughts when you
saw him? The thing he forgot to tell you
here is he was wearing shorts and tennis shoes in this
weather. Oh my gosh.
So, what we saw were two distinctly different type of
wounds. First one was the frost bite of
his toes, and the bottom of his foot.
But, the more dramatic appearance was the front of his
shins. I mean, each step that he took,
the ice crystals served as sort of an abrasive, like a sand
paper that just chewed up his legs, so by the time he saw me
he really had lost an entire layer of skin on the front of
both of his shins. Now, there's a new product out
here, called Dermapure. Is that how this comes into play
with Marty? I mean, you knew about this
product and you said "he needs this."
Well, the center portion of each shin was so deep it was down to
muscle tissue, so basically we needed to have something to
cover it with, and the options were skin grafts or this new
product that we had heard about, so we gave this a try.
And, you're going to tell me it worked, right?
It worked great. He grew new skin over the area,
and had a remarkable recovery on that.
Doctor, was Dermapure initially created for diabetes patients
who sometimes lose a toe or have problems with skin ulcers?
Let me tell you about diabetics. They are fast becoming probably
the most common disorder in America today and it involves
loss of circulation, and the area affected the most is the
feet, ankles and feet below, so quite often, in fact about 20%
of these are going to lose enough circulation in their feet
that they develop spontaneous ulcers or wounds in the feet
that just don't heal. Eventually, if they're not
treated aggressively or recognized right off the bat,
they may progress to amputations.
They frequently do. So, some of the newest products
in would care today involve what we call skin substitutes, or
developing skin substitutes so that we don't have to use the
traditional skin grafts, so the developments come mostly from
that side of the market. Got it.
But we can use it on just about any situation where we would
need to use a skin graft. So, doctor, tell me how
Dermapure works. It's actually a donated skin
tissue from the makers of Dermapure, Tissue Regenix
developed a technique to remove the parts of the cells that will
create an allergic reaction to the host, and it leaves us with
just the matrix, or the substances of the cell that are
most important for wound healing, such as the collagen,
and it creates basically a scaffold that allows the new
tissue, the regenerating tissue, to cross over and regenerate
within that substance. And when we come back we will
hear more about Marty's story and how modern medicine and
great doctors are truly working miracles.
Stay with us. (music).
We're back and we're speaking with Dr. Mark Robbins,
specialist in wound and hyperbaric medicine from Salt
Lake City, Utah and Marty Smithson, a frostbite survivor.
Marty, after this whole incident, did you ever think
knowing how badly damaged your feet and shins were, that a
product like Dermapure and meeting this doctor could help
you to a full recovery? It was pretty crazy.
There was like a big a hole in my shins.
They were all red. I couldn't feel my left foot at
all. And you told me during the break
that the people following you could only find you by your
bloody trail in the snow. That's pretty intense.
Yeah, I had to keep pushing down that mountain because if I
wouldn't have, something worse could have happened.
Absolutely. And doctor, when you saw him,
did you really think that you could, using a product like
Dermapure, actually bring him to a full recovery?
Well, it is a tissue product. It is skin tissue.
I had several experiences with it that were very positive at
the time, so yeah we thought this would be a very good trial.
Well doctor, any closing thoughts, just about, I mean
this product is for patients with diabetes, it's for
adventurers, just closing thoughts on this.
Well, adventurers I would recommend being well prepared
for the elements at all time, even if it's a n ice warm day.
Yeah. But that kind of goes without
being said, and I think Marty could attest to that too.
Yeah, for sure. For diabetics, I think the most
important thing we can recommend here is daily foot care.
Daily foot checks. Even a small callus that looks
like it's developing, go see your physician, because the
earlier we can treat these, the better successes we have.
Well, thank you both for being in the studio today.
Amazing story, I mean, and a happy ending.
Thankfully. Yeah.
And if you would like additional information on this segment, or
other issues related to diabetes and wound care, visit us at
TheBalancingAct.com or go hyper social.
Log on to Facebook.com/TheBalancingActFans
(music).