2 weeks and one day ago I slammed on my skimboard. I did a water drop on a long steep bank at the open beach where there was a big swell washing up lots of water to create a long runway. The board hit a ridge in the sand and abruptly stopped skimming. I was wearing a shortie and banged my knee. There was a white oval patch about 3cm long just to the right of my patellar tendon where the skin had been lost
Within a few minutes it started bleeding and after washing under a tap in beach carpark looked like the skin of a strawberry.
I have borderline low neutrophils which have shown up in blood tests for years, no idea why. Docs never bothered to investigate further or even mention it (until recently). Might explain why scrapes are difficult to heal for me - I seem to get scabs that is not very healthy looking (not all dark). So I was fairly pissed off. I visited this thread and did a search for neosporin - not available in Australia, I don't think any antibiotics are available without prescription.
However, the neosporin website has good links to wound care first aid
Tips for Treating & Healing Cuts, Scrapes & Other Wounds | BAND-AID® Brand and after reading what people had to say here about vaseline, jelly and keeping covered I decided to try and follow that.
I started off with just using anti bacterial handwash, the wound ointment (looks like vaseline) and putting a non stick dressing on top of that held in place with tape. The non stick dressing is like a perforated plastic film sandwich around a thin cotton pad. I put copious amounts of that jelly like ointment on - at the edges of the scrape, it won't stick to the wet raw wound. Changed it twice a day, washing off the handwash with a hosepipe outside. In the shower I covered it with a waterproof plaster. About 2 days into the treatment I decided to try the Wound Spray - I stopped for one day after this because it seemed to result in a more stained bandage overnight. Then decided to carry on anyway with it. The instructions say it can be used together with the jelly ointment. Things did seem to be steadily improving day by day.
I didn't stop surfing and I didn't stop skateboarding. I could tell this wasn't helping because I would come back from a session with an increased stain on the bandage (if skating) or waterproof plaster if surfing. The skateboarding wasn't too bad because the scrape was just to the right of my knee tendon and didn't get full compression in a knee slide. I also think the jelly was lubricating the plastic film. I tried changing my kneeslide stepping sequence to land left knee first, but it was all awkward and not conducive to safe bails. I didn't realise that I always land right knee first until this, although the right side plastic cap does always wear more than the left. The answer for surfing was to continue wearing the shortie - that way I didn't have the wetsuit chafing/compressing the skin on my knee. Just before a surf, I would put the Max hold Nexcare waterproof plaster on, then take off and put the would spray, jelly and non stick dressing on after that session. I frequently surf twice in a day, so got thru a lot of plasters. The band aid instructions say that dressings should keep moisture in for better healing, but not be saturated/watertight hence the removal after surf.
The other problem I have is that I always start to get an allergic reaction to waterproof plasters in particular and get blisters. So I minimised this by using an extra large dressing which I shifted around and tried to tape in a different spot every day. When it got smaller alternated between the sensitive xl plaster and the dressing. Even so I got a blister from the Max hold waterproof plaster - which I am now treating! but its only small.
Yesterday after exactly 2 weeks after injury I was able to surf without any plaster - skin completely grown over. Purple and blotchy (pic below taken today), but the skin is there and sudocrem zinc ointment will stick to it completely without sliding off.
Thanks to everyone who posted info here.