Ouch… Damnit. I laid my cruiser down at 45 mph. I rolled about 20 yards on the pavement. My bike continued on its own into a telephone pole. Anyone have any suggestions on speeding healing from such an event. I have huge bruises all over my body. Luckily nothing broke (I get lots of calcium). I do however have road rash and bruising like you would not believe. I am swollen all over. I am using ice for the first 72 hours then I was going to do ice then heat. Off and on every 20 minutes or so. For the rash I was going to use hydrocortizone and 3-anti-biotic ointment. I want to get back to working out I just think working out when I have all these injuries would not help. Any suggestions welcome aside from the obvious keep the rubber side down next time.
my college cross country had an interesting method of torture for us - the ice column. this is a large plastic tube that you filled 3/4 of the way with ice and the rest water and stood in it for 20 minutes. it was painful beyond belief, but nothing reduced swelling and killed pain like that. if you have anything you could adapt to make one i’d suggest that, if you are submerging feet or hands put on neoprene hand or toe covers to prevent frost bite. buckets and or tubs work very well. swelling kills healthy tissue while it trys to heal the damaged tissue so remember RICE - rest, ice, compression, elevation. good luck
Vitamin E ointment and the triple antibiotic – keep it moist to reduce the scarring. After the healing, use alpha-hydroxy acids to help reduce the scarring appearance. The bruising is just going to have to take care of itself. Massage can help the movement of the fluids out of the tissues so it can be metabolised. When working out, make sure you give the skin some time to stretch so you don’t re-open the wounds.
Make sure you keep your open wounds (road rash) clean. The last thing you need is for them to get infected. Good 'ol soap and water is probably good enough. Dry them and apply the triple anti-biotic ointment. Depending on how bad your road rash is you may want to clean the wounds twice a day. If some of the rash areas are really bad with drainage,etc. it may not hurt to clean with 1/2 strength hydrogen peroxide (mix it 50/50 with sterile water or normal saline) after the soap and water. Just do not use full strength hydrogen peroxide, it can be damaging to forming tissue cells. Depending on the severity of the wounds and if they are weeping or not you may want to cover them with a non-adherent (non-stick) dressing (telfa pad, etc). Gauze may stick to the wound bed and when removed can take some of the forming tisse with it
Best advice is to keep your road rash clean, dry and apply a little antibiotic ointment and keep it covered with a non-sticking type of dressing. Moist wounds provide ideal conditions to bacterial growth.
I second the Vitamin E thing. Both ingesting it and rubbing it on the wounds. My sister was caught in a fire when she was 3; my folks put her in an ice bath and rubbed lots of Vit. E on her legs (which were badly burned). She recovered with absolutely no scarring, and the healing process was very rapid. Good luck, man.
Thanks for the advice. So far the road rash is healing really well. It is also healing really quickly. The bruises are looking really knarly. They are a pure black with all kinds of other colors around the edges. I am lucky I had my balistic nylon jacket on or I would really have been toast. If only I had my nylon pants on I would not have any road rash. The only places i have it is where my jeans tore and my flesh hit pavement. I am one blessed dude though. I will be back to working out as soon as my mid back, ass and hips heal those spots took the worst of it. I am doing the triple anti-biotic and vit e I also used a real aloe plant and that has worked wonders…