in this video I'm going to go over the different types of wound drainage also known as exudate so let's get started as the nurse you want to be able to identify the different types of wound drainage because this drainage tells you a lot about your patient's wound like is it healing properly or is there maybe an infection going on so when you're looking at this wound drainage you want to be paying attention to a couple things number one it's color is this the color you expect this wound drainage to be at this particular stage in our Moon healing process also look at its consistency is it thin and watery or is it thick and it's a mount is this the amount that we expect it to be or is it increasing over time which in some cases could be a bad thing and you want to pay attention to if there is an odor present with the drainage first up is Cirrus drainage so this type of drainage is going to be clear and a very very pale yellow color now the reason for its consistency in color is because it's actually just made up of blood plasma that's low in proteins and we expect this type of drainage after a recent injury or surgery because it's part of the inflammatory phase of the wound healing process and this type of drainage is actually beneficial for wound healing because as this serious fluid is flowing through the wound it's going to help keep the wound clean by removing old cells or foreign matter plus it's going to keep that wound bed moist so we can promote healing therefore as an nurse you want to make sure that this drainage is appearing the way it should so it should be clear and a very very P yellow color it should be thin and watery not thick it should not have an odor if it has an odor think infection and you want to make sure it's not putting out too much Cirrus drainage we really just want small amounts and these amounts are actually going to decrease over time as this wound is healing if you notice that it's putting out a lot of serrus drainage that could be a red flag and you need to further investigate it because it could mean that the patient has an infection next up is sanguinous drainage this type of drainage is red and it mainly consists of blood hence why it's the red color and this type of drainage is totally expected whenever a patient has a recent injury to let's say their blood vessel because blood vessels what do they carry blood so whenever you cut into one of them or damage it's just going to spill its contents out and that sanguinous drainage is just going to flow out so we expect this early on but as time goes on things should start to clot off repair themselves and we should not have this type of drainage now in the beginning phases is actually beneficial because it's going to keep that wound bed nice and moist plus it's going to signal to your body hence your immune system that something's wrong because you're spilling out blood so it's going to send immune cells to go in there and prevent infection and promote healing therefore as a nurse you should know that in the early stages of this type of drainage is going to be that bright red color it's going to be thin and watery and it can have a coppery bloody smell to it but as time goes on the mounts that this wound's putting out of this sanguinous drainage should actually start to decrease the color will darken and it'll thicken up let us know that it's clotting off now it's completely abnormal if this drainage is actually increasing that is not a good thing it could indicate we have uncontrolled bleeding our patient could Hemorrhage maybe that blood vessel really hasn't repaired itself so we need to go in surgically and repair it or they may even have a clotting problem so take a peek at their medication history are they on anti-coagulants have you had any recent Labs on their coag see where they are at also if they've had a change in odor of this it has a foul odor or there's a change in color that could tell us that we have an infection or that wound is not healing like it needs to next up is seros sanguinius so this strain is actually a combination of the two we just went over so it's a combination of serus strain and sanguinia strain so when you take serum and mix it with some blood you get light pink thin watery drainage and this type of drainage we expect it during the early phases of wound healing like the inflammatory phase and as a nurse you want to make sure that this drainage is looking the way it should so it should be thin light pink it should not have an odor and it should be in small amounts and these amounts are actually going to decrease in time and it will actually Len up and color as that wound begins to heal so it would be abnormal if you're seeing large amounts of this strain or there's a change in its color it develops an odor this tells you this wound is not healing properly and there could be an infection and speaking of infection that leads me to our next type of wound drainage which is purulent and this is a thick pus-like drainage that can be a variety of colors it can be brown yellow green whatever the color it's not good and it's usually going to have a foul odor with it so the reason it smells bad and it has these colors is because it's consisting of a bunch of dead tissue cells particularly white blood cells bacteria and fluid therefore whenever you see this type of drainage it's never normal it's always abnormal and as a nurse what you want to do is you want to report it and get a culture and the reason we want to culture it is because that will tell us what type of bacteria is colonizing this wound so we can get the patient the proper antibiotic treatment for it okay so that wraps up this review over the different types of wound drainage if You' like to watch other videos in this series you can access the link in the description below