Road Rash shower or bath

Get some solarcane. It's got fix-it stuff as well as a pretty good anesthetic.

You might want to soak in a tub for a bit and then get someone with tweezers to pick around to make sure you got all the debris out of the skin.

Walgreens also has an aloe spray with lidocane. I'm sure all the other drug stores have similar. It helps a lot.

Thanks I will put Solarcane on the list.

But, the real question, now that we know it's not too bad for you, is: How's the bike?

Bike is ok. Tore off bar tape on pursuit bar and scuffed up my brake handle other than it looks fine. I still think I'm going to take it into the bike store for a once over. The wreck flattened my front tire so between gathering my senses and changing the flat it cost me 10min of race time too. Although I guess I should feel lucky I'm not hurt any worse than I am and bike is ok.

I always take baths for at least the first few days. Showers are OK as long as you can keep the water from hitting the wounds directly but usually I'm pretty sore too. The bath seems to help with that too.

This is a timely post.

I went down hard yesterday and have some deep, gnarly road rash up and down my arms, hips, and legs. I've been taking showers, but with cold water just like I do for a sunburn. I've also been using a pain-relieving antibacterial ointment and then dressing the sores.

Everyone - how long do you wait until getting back to swim/bike/run after a road rash injury?

I was pretty lucky - when I put the bike down yesterday I just sort of slid on my side and avoided breaking or spraining anything (except for my derailleur hanger). I'm not even sore today. The only thing that's painful are the sores that are oozing pink stuff :-P

I've gotten back on another bike and can ride without discomfort, and running is no problem. I am not going to swim with open sores as a courtesy to other folks in the pool. But are there any waterproof gauze or bandages or ointments that you use? I have a century ride for charity on Saturday that I feel well enough to do, but I'm super worried that sweaty, dirty bandages are going to come off. Any tips?

Tegaderm......that's all you need to know.

Put it on, change it every couple days or when it fills with fluid.....swim with it, run with it, bike with it.  Your road rash will heal without a scab.  No need to miss a single day of s/b/r. 

Edited by Left Brain 2013-09-22 8:39 PM

I had some nasty road rash after a crash at Racine 70.3 this year. I took a shower to wash all the normla parts of my skin and avoided the shower stream from hitting the road rash. I used a wash cloth to sponge bath around the wounds. It still stung like a bugger, but less than if I had a direct hit from the water. Good Luck. Bacitracin is your friend. I used it liberally and everything healed up quickly with minimal scarring/discoloration.