Break Out the Mercury, Maggots and Leeches

It's been five days since my run-in with road rash, and it's not really what I would call "healed."

Apparently, my take on wound care -- dry gauze, triple antibiotic ointment, and ripping off dressings twice a day, eventually letting it dry up and scab over -- is Stone Age medicine. I may as well have been using leeches. (At one point over the weekend, I was joking about maggot therapy.)

Nowadays, it's all about keeping it moist, with spray on bandages and membranes (those waterproof, self-sticking skins that go directly over a wound).

I finally got fed up tonight (leg started throbbing again), so I did a little reading on healing road rash, then went over to the 24-hour Harris Teeter and picked up some New Skin, as well as some Tegaderm. (If they didn't have what I needed, the next stop was the 24-hour Eckerd's a little further up).

Not sure if I applied it properly, but anything's gotta be better than tearing off scabs and hair (one of the few places on my body with abundant body hair) twice a day.

Tags: raspberry, friction burn, tegaderm