So, what do you do when you let it harden (the sore…)
It doesn’t hurt or anything, but it may if I don’t treat it…topical corticosteroid? tea tree oil? topical antibiotics?
I don’t screw around with sores any more.
Go see your doctor.
I had some sores that were not going away. No real pain, but they would flair up after a ride. Went to the doc, he lanced and drained one and then gave me some antibiotics and some cream for them. I took the pills as precribed and use the cream.
Two months later, some new sores appeared in new places. These hurt all the time, would not “pop”, and were really effecting my rides.
I did a race with a 103 degree fever and have never felt that bad during a sprint race. It never occured to me that the sores were telling me I was sick.
The following Monday, back to the doc I went. Staph it was. Three more lanced (very painful), more antibiotics, more cream.
All has been good since.
We need to remember that as we up our training volume, our imune system gets weaker. Those little sores are your body’s reaction to something it can’t handle at the time. Think of it like a little overtraining pop-up thingy that you would see in a Thanksgiving turkey.
This is probably very questionable advice, but here’s my experience. 3-4 yrs ago I had recurring sores. Family doc would give cipro with inconsistent results. Next stop was a infectious disease doc from Yale. Followed the advice of 2 week antibiotic cocktail, brand new shorts, keep things dry, etc. Still couldn’t ride much more than 200 miles per week without issues.
The last couple years, I have started to lance and drain every sore that stays around for longer than a day. It’s painful but no more so than doing 4-5 hr rides with hot spots. I use alcohol wipes and small needles I used for my diabetic cat (your family doc should phone in a script if you ask–you can’t buy them OTC). You have to be careful about infection (don’t lance anything right before riding as the skin needs to heal for a day, don’t ignore lesions that are really big or long-lasting, use lots of rubbing alcohol, get out of sweaty bike shorts immediately, and keep everything as dry as possible–use powder). So far, so good even when I ride 300-400 miles per week with many of those miles in the rain. I also started using an excessive amount of vitamin A&D ointment.
Aren’t you glad you asked? Sorry if the details are a bit over the top.