Quote Originally Posted by staceysue View Post
Spray & Wash, the laundry stuff? I want to know more about this!


Yeah. the laundry stuff.

http://forums.goingprepared.com/view...ay+wash#p13269

Scroll down to Ski Nurse's comment for the original, I'll just copy it here:


The BEST thing to clean road rash with the least amount of sting????

Spray & Wash.

Yep, that is what we use at the hospital. It works fabulous with a lot less scrubbing. And when you have to clean somone that hit the back of a car on their motorcycle @ 70mph & thes flew 120 feet without a helmet (oh, it was on the back of his bike) and has road rash literally from the top of his forehead to his toes, you want the easiest & less painful way.

Buy it....Spray & Wash.

Yep, the one that comes in the green bottle. Weird. But I promise you that it works. When we use it on our patients that are actually awake and/or coherent, they experience a lot less discomfort than when we are scrubbing w/ soap and water.

Now, I haven't actually used it on myself, but I would.

And people think that critical care medicine is complicated!

Also, reading the one "obra" article. Yes, try to keep the road rash from scabbing, but it eventually will. After we do the scrubbing, then we just apply bacitracin (helps with the scarring too) all over. We actually don't put on ANY dressing (tegaderm, telfa (like just the non-stick portion of the bandaid) unless there is a significant amount of drainage. Tegaderm WILL collect the fluid underneath.. It isn't as permeable as people think..it's a bit more occlusive, and that is just gross to have that fluid sitting there under the dressing. Ewww. A non-stick dressing like telfa is good if the road rash is, say, on you leg and you want to wear pants...then it will keep the road rash from sticking to your pants OR the drainage from getting on your pants. If the road rash is really weepy, we use a dressing called "Mepilex". It is an amazing product that pulls the yucky moisture out, but it maintains a moist, wound environment. I don't know if it is availble over hte counter at this time. Maybe I just have to add this to my first aid kit!

In a nutshell, if you can, clean the road rash really well of all debris, dry and then apply an ointment like bacitracin...you don't need an antibiotic ointment (neosporin). They can actually cause more harm than good. Keep the areas open to air as possible without applying a dressing.