Road rash - treating and minimizing scars

[Susie Derkins]

Last weekend I crashed pretty hard in the bike leg of a tri, and got some major road rash:

I also have it down my right leg.

I was taken off the course to the ER, since it was a pretty bad fall, and there was a lot of gravel in the wounds. Since then, I've been keeping it covered with dressings, covering it with triple antibiotic ointment, and changing dressings daily. Last night we tried Tegamet clear dressings on a few of the small ones, just because the huge bulk of the dressings was making me feel like an invalid. Tegamet works ok, but doesn't stay in a lot of spots (shoulders, knees, ankles, etc). So question 1 is, how do you usually treat road rash?

and 2, since a few of my really shallow ones are at this point, what do you do to keep scabs soft (I simply couldn't cover every single spot, so I have a few scabs), and to prevent scarring? Any suggestions are appreciated - having so much of it is brutal.

[ehirsch83]

Here is my tried and trued method(which was taught to me by my UCI license holding SO who has had more crashes then one should have,lol!)

in shower:
1)Anti-bacterial soap, scrub.
2) hydrogen peroxide

out of shower:
1)iodine solution
2)antibiotic cream
3) tegamet where it will stick
4) for places that tegamet does not stick- use anti stick gauze pads with the fishnet sleeve stuff over it(for arms and legs) or anti stick gauze pads to cover whole area and then the white adhesive tape around it.

repeat daily

it isn't fun but it does work.

Your road rash looks painful! I hope it all heals up and you feel better!

[Bethany1]

Oh my goodness. I can't help you, but I hope you heal up soon. Now I feel bad for whining about my scraped up knees to my DH the other day.

Sending (((HUGS))) your way.

[zoom-zoom]

Oh my goodness. I can't help you, but I hope you heal up soon. Now I feel bad for whining about my scraped up knees to my DH the other day.

Sending (((HUGS))) your way.

Yeah, no kidding. My knee owie pales in comparison. Susie, that looks incredibly painful! I hope you're able to sleep OK. So badass!!!

[Owlie]

That looks awful. With DBF's crash, the advice was to keep them moist to minimize scarring. I forget what he said they did, but it was similar to what was suggested.

Heal up quickly! Hopefully you can get to sleep...ouch...

[OakLeaf]

Ow ow ow.

I've been having really great results dressing wounds with raw honey covered with Tegaderm. You can tape down the edges if necessary.

Back in the day we used to use Second Skin - if the LBS doesn't have it, it's in the drugstore with burn dressings.

Rest, don't skimp on the pain meds, and heal. Pain is exhausting even if you're not really experiencing it as pain, and that'll tear down your immune system, making you extra susceptible to getting sick.

And keep it out of the sun for a year. (says the one who is still going around with a big glob of white sunblock on my upper lip every time I go out the door, and with big brown patches on my knees, shoulders and elbows from 20-year-old road rash that got sun on them)

Hope you heal up quick.