Mark,
Hydrogen peroxide is usually not used much as a wound disinfectant anymore as studies have shown it to cause some minor tissue damage and it also appears to slow the healing process somewhat. Diluted Betadine or it’s generics would be easier on the tissue than H2O2 and probably do a better job at disinfection. See the excerpt below that I pulled from a medical site a few years ago for a more detailed explanation:

Everything else you’re doing sounds good before the vet visit. Very unfortunate that you were put in this situation. Good luck with this one,

Kelly

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- Hydrogen peroxide is used less now as a debriding agent than in the past. When hydrogen peroxide is applied to a wound it combines with catalase produced in the tissues and decomposes into oxygen and water, producing effervescence (Potter and Perry, 1993). The rationale was that this helps to loosen materials that might hinder wound recovery and enables them to be washed off more readily. Six-percent w/v hydrogen peroxide (known as ' 20 volume' solution) liberates twenty times its own volume of oxygen upon decomposition (Thomas, 1990a), and is generally diluted 1 in 3 for the irrigation of wounds. The release of oxygen also kills some anaerobic bacteria such as the tetanus bacillus or Escherichia coli that might otherwise infect the wound. This anti-microbial action of hydrogen peroxide can be amplified 100-fold by the addition of L-cysteine (Berglin et al, 1982).

The problem with hydrogen peroxide and some other traditional debriding agents is that they also damage the healthy cells (keratinocytes and fibroblasts) that are needed for wound healing and inhibit their necessary migration into the damaged area (Tatnall, Leigh, and Gibson, 1990; Tatnall, Leigh, and Gibson, 1991; O'Toole, Goel, and Woodley, 1996). In current practice the emphasis has moved away from the use of cytotoxic materials to those which promote healing, including the use of natural signalling molecules such as platelet-derived growth factor (Higgins and Ashry, 1995). In the British National Formulary (1996) hydrogen peroxide is now listed under "Astringents, oxidisers and dyes", and not as a desloughing agent.

References

Berglin, E.H., Edlund, M.B., Nyberg, G.K., and Carlsson, J. (1982) Potentiation by L-cysteine of the bactericidal effect of hydrogen peroxide in Escherichia coli. Journal of Bacteriology, 152(1), 81-88 (Oct).

British National Formulary (1996) 13.11.6 Astringents, oxidisers, and dyes: hydrogen peroxide. Joint publication of the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (p. 492).

Higgins, K.R., and Ashry, H.R. (1995) Wound dressings and topical agents. Clin Podiatr Med Surg, 12(1), 31-40 (Jan).

O'Toole, E.A., Goel, M., and Woodley, D.T. (1996) Hydrogen peroxide inhibits human keratinocyte migration. Dermatol Surg, 22(6), 525-529 (Jun).

Potter, P.A. and Perry, A.G. (1993) Fundamentals of nursing: concepts, process & practice (3rd edition). St. Louis: Mosby-Year Book, Inc (p. 1666).

Tatnall, F.M., Leigh, I.M., and Gibson, J.R. (1990) Comparative study of antiseptic toxicity on basal keratinocytes, transformed human keratinocytes and fibroblasts. Skin Pharmacology, 3(3), 157-163.

Tatnall, F.M., Leigh, I.M., and Gibson, J.R. (1991) Assay of antiseptic agents in cell culture: conditions affecting cytotoxicity. Journal of Hospital Infections, 17(4), 287-296 (Apr).

Thomas, S. (1990a) Wound cleansing agents. In Wound Management Dressings. The Pharmaceutical Press (Chapter 11, p. 76).

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