About 10 days ago I took a spill while taking a flat turn at Whiting Ranch. This little crash resulted in a road rash on my forearm, knee and finger. I started off with bandages to treat them, but found that those things were sticking to my wounds. So I went to the local CVS and found this, 3M Nexcare Tegaderm. If you’ve never heard of it, basically it’s a wound dressing that’s clear. The idea is to keep your wound sealed from the outside world to prevent infection and from you hitting/touching it on other things.
The cost for a box of 4 hovers around $17, sounds pricey for fancy “band-aids” right? Below is the worst of my wounds, on my forearm.
I applied 3 of the 4 dressings on the would in a period of 8 days. During that time the wound would ooze out some nasty clear/brown/yellowish fluid. It didn’t smell or anything so it wasn’t infected. The gross thing about this dressing is that the fluid would collect inside and sometimes gravity would cause it to ooze down your arm. The directions say if the dressing starts to leak, replace it.
Here’s the wound after 7 days of being under the Tegaderm. Looks good so far right? No scabs! By the way, one dressing can be left on the wound for up to 7 days. But since I was oozing, I replaced one after one day and the second one after 3 days. The one on the photo was on for at least 4 days.
The dressing did a great job in allowing the wound to heal without scabbing. Here it is after 10 days.
I actually liked using the Tegaderm for my wound because I could take a shower, sleep and even go riding while this thing was on my arm. I highly recommend stocking your medicine cabinet with a box in the event you do crash, you’ll be ready.
