• AG: Road Rash

    From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jan 11 19:38:15 2020
    My plastic surgeon (now retired) was very big on putting Vitamin-E oil
    on a healing wound as soon as the stitches came out.

    He left beautiful scars. Every time he took a cancer off, I'd say to
    my friends "Look at my beautiful scar!" and they would say "What
    scar?", and I can't find the most-recent scar myself.

    So I figure he knows a little something, and start putting E-oil on
    minor wounds as soon as they scab over, or immediately, in the case of
    burns. It works really well on burns; the skin stays flexible and
    doesn't crack or peel off. Maybe olive oil would work the same way,
    but a ten-dollar bottle of E-oil lasts for several years.

    I started putting E-oil on my scraped knuckle as soon as I stopped
    putting triple antibiotic on it, and it appears to plan on healing
    without leaving a mark.

    The oil should be rubbed in -- "massage it a little".

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    There's another trick I thought up by myself, and I *know* this one
    works.

    Sometimes a scrape bleeds so slowly that you get a bead of blood that
    dries up into a spherical scab that's inclined to catch on things and
    tear the wound open. Even when you get a nice flat scab, the wound
    heals around the edges first, the scab lifts at the edges, and you're
    at risk of tearing the un-healed middle open.

    What you do about this is to take a long hot bath (or wash a load of
    dishes, depending on where the scab is), then put a thick layer of
    soap on a plastic pumice such as is sold for smoothing calluses, and
    rub the scab VERY GENTLY until it's worn flat, thin, and flexible.

    I imagine that keeping the scab oiled would help to keep it flexible;
    I haven't had road rash since long before I got cancer, so I can't
    say.

    Come to think of it, that scraped knuckle, which I faithfully kept
    oiled, never cracked or tore. But then, it was such a small wound
    that I didn't notice it until I wondered where all that blood was
    coming from. (I didn't realize that it was blood at first, and
    thought it was red ink from the bag of chips I had just retrieved from
    behind a cabinet.)

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at comcast dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid on Sun Jan 12 21:54:35 2020
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:38:15 -0500, Joy Beeson
    <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:


    I haven't had road rash since long before

    Not a wise thing to say. I strode over black ice on the bridge on my
    waw to church this morning, and got a 100% genuine case of road rash
    on my right elbow.

    I thought it was a bruise, but when I got to the church and took off
    my shirt, I found a big oval red patch where the epidermis had been
    scraped off -- not quite deep enough to bleed.

    There is supposed to be first-aid cream in the box beside the freezer,
    but I couldn't find it -- I should have left a note for the Kiddie
    Kollege teacher, come to think of it -- so I rinsed the wound with
    sterile saline, then coated it with some of the A&D ointment I carry
    in a lip-salve box in my right pocket at all times.

    It had stopped stinging by the time I completed my abbreviated stair
    climbs after the service. Abbreviated because I had noticed that
    there was no hat on the coat rack, thought it might have fallen off on
    the bridge, and couldn't keep my mind on my exercise. I did go up and
    down enough to get a little out of breath. All on one staircase
    instead of making a vertical loop hitting all six staircases.

    My hat was in the closet; I'd forgotten to wear it. (I got distracted
    after pinning on my wool scarf.)

    The red spot was less than half as big when I very carefully took off
    my shirt, but darker and angrier. Seems even smaller now (13:22), but
    that could be the light in here. I poured some peroxide on a wash
    cloth, rubbed it with soap, then rubbed the soapy rag on the wound to
    get the A&D off -- standing by the sink so I could rinse it *real*
    fast; I knew it was going to sting. Then I rinsed the tap water off
    with a squirt of peroxide.

    Then I hesitated between first-aid cream and Bacitraycin. The
    Bacitraycin is supposed to be put generously on a dressing, and I
    couldn't see a way to secure a dressing on an elbow, so I used
    first-aid cream.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Later I remembered that we have some pieces of one-on-one ribbed
    stretch tubing left over from one of Dave's incidents -- he can't
    remember what either -- and wore one of those the rest of the
    afternoon and evening.

    When it neared bedtime, I washed with just peroxide on the rag. The
    red is now still smaller, but the distal edge still foams up when
    peroxide hits it, and washing made it resume stinging. Then I put a
    bandaid coated with Bacitraycin on it and covered the bandaid with a
    clean piece of tubing.

    And so to bed.

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at comcast dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 14 23:36:51 2020
    Tuesday, 14 January, 2020

    but the distal edge still foams up when
    peroxide hits it,

    That should have been "proximal"; it was the far edge of the wound
    when I was looking at it with my elbow bent.

    Sometimes bad design is good. The water lines in our house run
    through the slab -- and where else could you run them in a slab house?
    So even the faucet closest to the heater runs cold if you turn it off
    for a minute, and it takes so long for the water in the master bath to
    run hot that I've resigned myself to shaving with cold water. This
    has been handy for wound washing: I don't keep boiled-and-cooled
    water around, but I can wash for quite a while in water that's been
    hot.

    It hasn't been all that hot (the water heater is set to be "safe" for
    old folks and small children) but I figure that the germs will come
    down with heat exaustion if they stay slightly above incubation long
    enough.

    Soap and plain water; no peroxide after the first day because our vet
    says that peroxide kills off the cells that are trying to make new
    skin.

    It was Dr. Snyder who told us to put a big glob of antibiotic ointment
    on a dressing.

    I found bandaids big enough to cover the wound and stretchy enough to
    stick to an elbow in the first-aid drawer. I put the last one on this
    morning, rode to Meijers (about five miles), and bought another box.
    They have been "improved" since we bought the old ones; I'll find out
    whether they work as well when I get ready for bed tonight.

    I also threw the last of the stockinette sleeves into the wash this
    morning -- I've been wearing them in bed to keep the bandaid from
    getting scraped off -- so it's lucky that I washed two yesterday.

    Today was my first real ride of the year -- I rode the Fugi home from
    the shop, and had a quick two-mile dash the next day -- and I may have
    improved my speed. I won't know until I ask Google how much the wrong
    turn added to my trip home. [An even six miles, making my speed 7.8
    mph.] But when I was coming through the village, my right knee
    (which has been worrying me during my sciatica exercises for months)
    said "I don't want any more sprinting, thank you very much" and my
    left knee said "Now that you mention it . . ."

    Luckily, traffic in the village was light. Slightly amazing at five
    o'clock.

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at comcast dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to All on Sun Feb 2 23:51:20 2020
    I forgot to mention that the E-oil is used only once per day, but Dr.
    Ashton said there was no risk of overdosing if I used it more often.
    (I'd been re-applying it every time I washed my face.)

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at comcast dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid on Sun Apr 5 17:33:57 2020
    On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 21:54:35 -0500, Joy Beeson
    <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

    The red spot was less than half as big when I very carefully took off
    my shirt, but darker and angrier.

    Would you believe that that spot is *still* red? It isn't sore or
    anything, but the skin is slightly shinier than the uninjured skin
    beside it.

    Just looked out the window and saw two couples ride by on
    around-the-park bikes.

    Then two cars came out of Boys City Drive, but neither had a bike
    rack.

    I walked a mile and climbed a few stairs this morning.

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at comcast dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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