I think I know the answer, but now in my 4th session of healing from a fair amount of road rash through the years I still do not have a process down in treatment. I hit a dog on June 10th at 30 mph and have various spots and most have healed by this point except two spots. One spot on my forearm is now about the size of a quarter and after a few days of wrapping and using Neosporin I started leaving it open to the air. It is small but deep and continues to break open and ooze a little while slowly improving. The worst is on my knee which took the hardest impact. The scrape went down to where the tissue looks white. I have kept my knee covered and change twice a day with a non-stick dressing, Neosporin and wrapped. It continues to ooze and some of that is a fair amount of fluid around the injured knee from the impact. There is a lot of pressure on my knee from the fluid, but some of that has dissipated and moved down to my foot where there is blood and fluid.
After a visit to the orthopedic on Friday the x-rays show no damage to the bones, but I will have to get a MRI this week to check for other potential damage. But one thing the orthopedic said to me was to start leaving the knee unwrapped and exposed to the air. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying, but I tried leaving it open that evening and the open wound was an extremely uncomfortable burning sensation to the point I put Neosporin on it and wrapped it again.
When I read other articles regarding cyclists and road rash I noticed Duoderm being suggested a number of times and a doctor that treats road rash spoke highly of Duoderm and went into keeping the area moist and covered. It seems like that is part of the magic of a hydrocolloid dressing. I also noticed that changing Duoderm is easy on the wound when it is removed, but is a dressing that is left on once the wound is thoroughly cleaned until it is healed. The doctor that treats pro cyclists noticed that the wounds covered with a hydrocolloid dressing seemed to heal in a third of the time compared to traditional dry dressings.
If you are a road rash pro and have treatment down to a science what have you found to heal faster?
Open to the air or covered and keep moist?
Have you used Duoderm or similar and it worth keeping in your injury treatment inventory?
How does Duoderm compare to Tegaderm? (I read some positive and negative comparisons on the web this weekend, but if anyone wants to chime in with personal experience I would appreciate.)
Perhaps on my 5th road rash experience I will get better at treating.
A few years ago a very friendly cyclist (probably 40's in age) comes up on a rural road and asks if he could ride with me back to the parking lot. I noticed his left leg was very scarred and pitted looking so I asked him and he said he has raced nothing but crits since he was young and that was a result of crashing many times. So many that he could not count. That dude must have been a pro at treating wounds based on how bad his leg looked.
After a visit to the orthopedic on Friday the x-rays show no damage to the bones, but I will have to get a MRI this week to check for other potential damage. But one thing the orthopedic said to me was to start leaving the knee unwrapped and exposed to the air. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying, but I tried leaving it open that evening and the open wound was an extremely uncomfortable burning sensation to the point I put Neosporin on it and wrapped it again.
When I read other articles regarding cyclists and road rash I noticed Duoderm being suggested a number of times and a doctor that treats road rash spoke highly of Duoderm and went into keeping the area moist and covered. It seems like that is part of the magic of a hydrocolloid dressing. I also noticed that changing Duoderm is easy on the wound when it is removed, but is a dressing that is left on once the wound is thoroughly cleaned until it is healed. The doctor that treats pro cyclists noticed that the wounds covered with a hydrocolloid dressing seemed to heal in a third of the time compared to traditional dry dressings.
If you are a road rash pro and have treatment down to a science what have you found to heal faster?
Open to the air or covered and keep moist?
Have you used Duoderm or similar and it worth keeping in your injury treatment inventory?
How does Duoderm compare to Tegaderm? (I read some positive and negative comparisons on the web this weekend, but if anyone wants to chime in with personal experience I would appreciate.)
Perhaps on my 5th road rash experience I will get better at treating.
A few years ago a very friendly cyclist (probably 40's in age) comes up on a rural road and asks if he could ride with me back to the parking lot. I noticed his left leg was very scarred and pitted looking so I asked him and he said he has raced nothing but crits since he was young and that was a result of crashing many times. So many that he could not count. That dude must have been a pro at treating wounds based on how bad his leg looked.