Quickest way to heal scrapes?

[armitage]

Hi all,

After a particularly intensive MMA class last night, I’ve got some scrapes on my knuckles and elbows, from doing a lot of bag work wearing grappling gloves. Although they aren’t too painful, ideally I’d hope that they’ll heal up by the class next Friday…anyone have any suggestions for things to do or avoid in the meantime? There was very little blood shed, but I wouldn’t want to worsen the situation by not letting them heal sufficiently. In future I’ll be sure to include more palm strikes etc in the workout! 😉

[lazlo]

This has worked for me:
1. clean the abrasion, apply \”antibiotic ointment\”, apply breathable bandage(not those plastic ones), do not let it get wet(the bandage-don’t want the wound to soak), after one or two days, stop bandaging, keep wound clean and DRY, do not pick at and it. The wound is usually fixed in a week if it’s the type I’m thinking.

OR I(if I’m too tired to do #1)…

2. clean the abrasion, keep it DRY(after daily cleaning), and don’t mess with. It heals on it own, in most cases.

On the side, I found the more scar tissue I get on my knuckles, knees, and elbows, the tougher they get. This reminds me of my of my \”yute\”ful days of crew where our hands were worn raw. There was no time for healing, so advice number 3(if there really is no time for #1 or #2)…

3. tightly tape it up wound during class and clean up the mess(from the newly opened wound) after class…not ideal or joyful but it works too I found.

[g-v]

Unless it’s a gaping wound, I wash it off, sterilize it with hydrogen peroxide, and leave it be. Every now and then, I rewash it, and again do the peroxide thing.

[kravjeff]

Good advice … I would add:

Handwraps if not healed by your next class (or maybe always?) and if the scrapes are on your hands as opposed to your fingers. This method works well for me:

http://www.boxinggyms.com/tips/wraps/jason/knuckles/index.htm

For elbows – I use a light elbow brace (made by McDavid) to avoid those injuries, or to cover them if I forget to wear it and end up with raw elbows.

The wraps and brace are both protective, and avoid the mess of opening one up again.

Also – Maybe you just hit alot harder than I do, but I’ve never had problems if I’m using gloves. Are you sure your gloves fit well?

[armitage]

Thanks for the advice guys – I was borrowing someone elses gloves and although they fit pretty well, they did start to scrape after a while. Everyone else there had handwraps, so I’ll be getting some of them this week in any case, and if it still isn’t healed, can stick to open palm strikes or variations to minimise additional damage.

Hopefully I’ll be able to buy my own pair of grappling gloves this week as well when the paycheck comes through 😀 The elbow scrapping is entirely on my left arm, because I was less used to striking with it, and so frequently slipped across the bag (we were practising striking from mounted position), whereas my right is completely fine.

[Author]

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