Waterproofing a wound?

Tegaderm, made by 3M. It's a biker's best friend when dealing with road rash, should work fine for you.

2x on the Tegaderm. Worked great last summer when I had road rash and another race coming up.

When I used to kayak a lot I had good luck using a product called New Skin. You paint it on.

I was going to suggest Superglue.... But Newskin is probably a better option. Same idea though.

Ha, I suppose I should have been more specific when I mentioned "waterproof dressing" but for the record, Tegaderm is GREAT stuff. It's more meant for showers and such, but will work well even for a swim. If you want to be really paranoid, you could put something like Second Skin (NuSkin, honestly Super-Glue type stuff works fine too) on the wound, let it dry, then cover it with Tegaderm, too.

Another vote for Tegaderm.

 

ETA: Super glue (or New Skin) work great for lots of stuff, but they won't "waterproof" it like Tegaderm, esp. if it;s in a flexy spot and large.

Edited by mmrocker13 2012-04-18 9:50 AM

I've never tried it personally, but I have a friend who swears by "glad press&seal" plastic wrap as a good alternative to tegaderm. I would think it would be especially useful if it's an odd shaped or larger area. Plus, it's got to be cheaper!

Some great suggestions here, I only hope the swim happens on Sunday. See you out there!

Last week I had a long boarding accident the day before I had planned to go to the lake to camp with a group. I had six wounds that were about 4" x 4" and deep on my try set my forearm and my oblique

Last week I had a long boarding accident the day before I had planned to go to the lake to camp with a group. I had six wounds that were about 4" x 4" and deep
on my tricep, my forearm and my oblique. New skin has the bottle and brush version and a spray version, not knowing what to expect I got balls and went to the lake.

I watched a YouTube video and as a woman using the product said that it does not sting when brushed on ( if it's a tiny paper cut!). I cleaned my wounds and Dressed them with Neosporin. I decided to use the spray can because it looked like it would be easier to apply on such a large area. I decided to test it out on a little scrape I had on my hand to see how effective it was and see how it covered . The New skin bandage covered the area well and I applied 3 layers, HOWEVER it burned like a bitch.... Equally as much All three times. I had to take some shots to build up the courage to do it to 6 other areas. After doing a test run, I noticed that the liquid bandage was peeling off in some
areas so I put non stick pads and tape over them to be safe.

To be double safe I used Saran wrap and gorilla tape to make sure The bandages did not get wet .

Had a successful day on the water with the extra precautions I took. I ran out of the spray so I had to manually put it on using the tiny brush, halfway through the process I get impatient so I just poured on their and smoothed it out. ( Warning! It hurts equally as bad as the spray. There's no way around it)


Because my wounds were undisturbed and The ointment was maintained my heel time was cut in half.

There may be better ways to waterproof your bandages,and I may have looked a bit tacky with plastic wrap and duct tape on my arm, but I was not going to miss out on the lake for any reason.

Remember, New skin works very well but burns like a bitch!!!! Just a warning