Grazes

[John U]

I just clean the graze, let it scab up, and daily before hopping in the shower put a bit of sorbolene over the scab and the surrounding area. Sorbolene can be used like soap, it moistens and sort off waterproofs the scab so the scab doesn't get washed of every shower. Dab it dry carefully when you get out of the shower and keep an eye its healing progress.

Has always worked a treat for me and works well in areas where it's hard to apply a dressing.

 

[4dabush]

I just clean the graze, let it scab up, and daily before hopping in the shower put a bit of sorbolene over the scab and the surrounding area. Sorbolene can be used like soap, it moistens and sort off waterproofs the scab so the scab doesn't get washed of every shower. Dab it dry carefully when you get out of the shower and keep an eye its healing progress.

Has always worked a treat for me and works well in areas where it's hard to apply a dressing.

Best thing about the solosite gel is you get no scab at all...it goes from open wound to baby smooth pink skin...bit like when you bite your cheek...never scabs heals in a couple of days...same principle.

 

[slippy]

Comfeel, Coloplast or a similar ulcer dressing with adhesive gauze over the top. Stays moist, stinks. After 5 days or so, off comes the dressing, fresh pink skin.

 

[climberman]

how should one go about cleaning the wound?

I just hand her a few tissues.

 

[Ridenparadise]

Solosite is good stuff, but be logical - why wet a wet wound? First scrub the grazes out in the shower with plain old soap and your hand. No gauze needed, just time spent cleaning.
Don't use antiseptics as they do slow wound healing. Soap and water, time and "scrubbing" will adequately clean and disinfect the wound. Again, be logical - these grazes are always colonised by skin germs and you cannot prevent that. Leaving dressings in place for days at a time will increase the risk of infection unless it is almost healed - this is not a surgical wound.
Grazes almost always involve awkward areas like elbows and knees. Padded dressings and intact dressings don't survive in these places and there is nothing worse than oozing all over the place (or the bed). Buy a roll of Op-Site Flexifix and apply it directly to the skin. Replace as often as needed, or daily until things start to settle and the discharge decreases. You need help to put this stuff on in most places. Wash in the shower with soap again over the first few days when you change dressings. After that, saline is adequate.
If you have a special circumstances graze (I removed both arse cheeks in a road bike slide once), then you may need expensive, semi-moist and slightly padded dressings like Duo-Derm (self-adhering) or Allevyn (self-adhering or under Flexifix options exist). They do provide some added comfort under pressure, but when they explode, it's worse than the Nickelodeon awards.
If you have deeply embedded dirt there is no real option. You may need a scrubbing brush, but don't go nuts because repeated washing over days will eventually get most of it out and the rest will come away as the skin repairs anyway.
Towards the end of the healing process (when things are almost dry), change from Flexifix to Fixomull (the ventilated tape used under sports tape) and leave it in place until it looks grotty.

I have the option of any dressing and nurses to do the work on a daily basis, but mostly it's not necessary using the above approach. When I was young I had no finger or palm prints for years after a number of attempts to take the driveway corner at max speed failed spectacularly. Grazes take time to heal no matter what, but unless you've had the enjoyable experience of going through a total body potato peeler, generally they are just an inconvenience and you can definitely ride covered in Flex Fix or Fixomull.

 

[pink poodle]

A few squirts of selly's no gaps and you'll be sweet. Silicone is their low allergy alternative.

 

[slippy]

Leaving dressings in place for days at a time will increase the risk of infection.....
Grazes almost always involve awkward areas like elbows and knees. Padded dressings and intact dressings don't survive in these places.

I know it sounds counterintuitive to a lay person, but hydrocolloid dressings are designed to be left in place for 5 to 7 days. Removing them earlier simply reduces their ability to work. There is no increased risk of infection if the wound has been sufficiently cleaned to begin with.
An adherent gauze over the top will keep these dressings in place for many days.
I have used this technique on myself and many riding partners on many occassions and it has proven effective every time.

 

[MarioM]

All i do is scrub them out douse them in dettol and then just leave them alone . Keep riding and surfing and they still heal pretty quick . If its something that affects work then i cover up with gauze but thats it .

 

[Pebble]

I used Solosite when I hurt my knee pretty bad, it seemed like a good thing.

In retroscpect when I had a caesar had I realized that the gooey looking white stuff wasn't some sort of infection I probably wouldn't have had as much of a scar, mind you we were living in Darwin so I thought humidity and open cuts weren't exactly going to be best friends.......my tip is don't clean too vigouroursly after you've initially cleaned / disinfected (of course unless it gets red / sore etc).

Lately I've hurt my big toe, just taken some skin off (weirdest thing to happen when you slip and fall over in the kitchen). Been letting it dry out but applying iodine and bandage because I have to wear steelcap boots for 9hrs on my feet at work. I don't have any solosite but mainly I'm wanting to make sure it doesn't get infected at work and an enclosed shoe is a moist environment anyway. Bandage also prevents it being sort if it touches the shoe etc. Might try some Lucas PawPaw ointment instead now (as someone mentioned) because I think although it's still not hard / dry it shouldn't get infected now.

Solosite and bandage your elbow if you want it to stay moist and flexible I guess.

I've never tried that "bandaid spray" is that any good?

 

[iguanabartola]

I know it sounds counterintuitive to a lay person, but hydrocolloid dressings are designed to be left in place for 5 to 7 days. Removing them earlier simply reduces their ability to work. There is no increased risk of infection if the wound has been sufficiently cleaned to begin with.
An adherent gauze over the top will keep these dressings in place for many days.
I have used this technique on myself and many riding partners on many occassions and it has proven effective every time.

+1 here on this. Best treatment IMO and helps reducing rubbing pain.
Few years ago I had a massive graze on the side of my body which went from my waist all the way down to my knee and this treatment was impressively effective.

To clean the wound, I sat on a very warm bath with betadine and for quite a long period of time rubbing the wound slightly. Painful experience indeed.

Hope you recovery quickly.

 

[Ridenparadise]

As I said above, why wet a wet wound? There is an answer and that is to help particulate matter loosen and come away from the skin leaving less staining. It works, but so do other methods. Hydrocolloid does not induce infection if left in situ for days, but you can bet that cultures from under the dressing will grow Staph aureus, Coliforms and Pseudomonas sp on and dressing left unchanged for several days. Is that bad - not usually, but it can be.

Here's a graze from 2014.

http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=307945&stc=1&d=1423640267

Deep - 5mm below the dermis and complicated by adjacent epidermal necrosis (like a deep burn but caused by blunt compression) and a gouge-like fracture in the ulna along the point of elbow. The small amount of forearm redness and swelling seen in this pic was massive the next day. Any deep and necrotic wound is an infection risk. Swelling increases the risk. Underlying fractures escalate the concern about infection. This was my elbow after a trail saboteur got me at speed on nasty, rocky terrain and it was managed very simply, without antibiotics or complex dressings.

After 30 odd years of medicine, including a decade of trauma-dominant work and after what has happened to me over the years, I'll say again that warm soapy water and palm of hand scrubbing for 10 minutes (makes you want some now), plus daily changes of Op-Site Flexifix UNTIL you can leave a dressing in place without drowning in it when it pops each afternoon is really the best way to go unless you have a desire to experiment with more expensive alternatives that are definitely no more comfortable.

 

[pharmaboy]

As I said above, why wet a wet wound? There is an answer and that is to help particulate matter loosen and come away from the skin leaving less staining. It works, but so do other methods. Hydrocolloid does not induce infection if left in situ for days, but you can bet that cultures from under the dressing will grow Staph aureus, Coliforms and Pseudomonas sp on and dressing left unchanged for several days. Is that bad - not usually, but it can be.

Here's a graze from 2014.

http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=307945&stc=1&d=1423640267

Deep - 5mm below the dermis and complicated by adjacent epidermal necrosis (like a deep burn but caused by blunt compression) and a gouge-like fracture in the ulna along the point of elbow. The small amount of forearm redness and swelling seen in this pic was massive the next day. Any deep and necrotic wound is an infection risk. Swelling increases the risk. Underlying fractures escalate the concern about infection. This was my elbow after a trail saboteur got me at speed on nasty, rocky terrain and it was managed very simply, without antibiotics or complex dressings.

After 30 odd years of medicine, including a decade of trauma-dominant work and after what has happened to me over the years, I'll say again that warm soapy water and palm of hand scrubbing for 10 minutes (makes you want some now), plus daily changes of Op-Site Flexifix UNTIL you can leave a dressing in place without drowning in it when it pops each afternoon is really the best way to go unless you have a desire to experiment with more expensive alternatives that are definitely no more comfortable.

Need to get on to the road bike forums RP and give some advice!

I must say though, your level of knowledge on superficial wounds is uncommon in medicine - advice is often gauze based and dry and replace often ( frankly , mostly bad, and certainly uncomfortable) - I had to refuse attention from a post OP nurse in hospital because I knew she had it wrong ( thankfully, the surgeon corrected her).

Impressive wound though

 

[poita]

Wound care knowledge in general is varied and generally poor amongst acute care health professionals. Ridenparadise is absolutely correct, although I am a convert to the more expensive and recent silicone based mesh and foam from mönlyke (mepitel/mepilex). Research has shown that a decent scrub out/down in the shower is the best clean out. No saline required. There is inconclusive evidence for post scrub down single antiseptic wash down in some groups. I rarely do this as it kills cells. Serous ooze is your bodies own magic potion of cleaning and new cells. Keep it on the wound. Drying out your wound just deprives the wound of this magic juice and makes it extremely difficult for new cells to fill the defect. It works (otherwise we would never have survived as a species) but moist is better. Anecdotally, my dry wound healing times are roughly double that of moist wounds. And if you use the dressings recommended here, you literally apply and pull off in 5-7 days! But the best method is not getting grazes at all, I tend to wear armour unless it's absolutely baking. I am in Victoria though.

 

[wombat]

RP: do you not end up with the dressing sticking to the graze after it's been on there for a day? I recently had a big arse graze (took most of the skin off one arse cheek) and althought it wasn't deep, it oozed plenty of blood initially. I washed it in the shower in the way you mentioned (mainly because I didn't have enough saline) and took to dressing it with jelonet, some betadine ointment (not a good idea apparently?) and covering with what I think may have been primapore? After a couple of days, even with the jelonet there it'd still stick a bit.
Had the same issue with a deeper graze on the heel of my hand. Same kind of approach to dressing it, but it always seemed to stick, and was a real bitch when it came time to change the dressing.

 

[pink poodle]

So...ridden paradise, what you are saying is I definitely need to shave down as part of the healing process for grazes?

 

[camoshop]

So...ridden paradise, what you are saying is I definitely need to shave down as part of the healing process for grazes?

I think so, also helps with wind resistance.

 

[pharmaboy]

Wombat - that's a good reason for the 5 to 7 days and not change it. The pain you feel is also new cells getting ripped off

 

[slippy]

Like most things, there's 6 different ways to skin a cat. The method I advocate works. RPs method apparently works too. The basic message is clean the wound properly, dress it with something depending on your personal belief structure, expect people to have different opinions on your choice of dressing, enjoy your healed skin next week or next fortnight if you choose to go the dry scabby route.

 

[poita]

So...ridden paradise, what you are saying is I definitely need to shave down as part of the healing process for grazes?

I just shave a patch where I'm about to put the dressing. No need, but it certainly hurts less when you remove and helps it stick better.

 

[Norco Maniac]

Hi Guys,
Came off the bike this afternoon and remember seeing a thread a while back (can't find it) about recommended treatments to speed up healing of grazes.
At 46 I have noticed it seems to take a lot longer than it used to and just wondering if anyone has any tips so I am not off the bike for too long : )
Thanks

being old, slow and lacking in skill i've had numerous stacks racing these last three years. i've found Manuka honey very effective when dealing with grazes and leaving me with less scarring. i use a non-stick dressing and a light gauze bandage. i put the Manuka honey on the dressing first rather than try to apply it onto the graze. i tend to scar quite badly otherwise (medical condition long story)

Thanks pink poodle.
I did ride out but it wasn't much fun with shoulder, rib and elbow injuries and a corky on my left leg to die for! Might try the roadie tomorrow or Thursday at the moment though things are sore enough to stay of the mtb.
Unfortunately the grazes are along length of my forearm and deep across the elbow joint so sealing up is not an option - unless I use glad wrap I guess.

use some Hiruidoid cream on the cork, massage it in morning and night. when the grazes heal, Hiruidoid is also effective in reducing scar colour and swelling.