Healing a Hefty Scrape

Triad Hydrophilic Wound Dressing, Vashe Wound Solution OTC, and bandages. As much as I try to avoid them, I’m unfortunately familiar with the bumps and scrapes that come with mountain biking; typically minor injuries from brushing a tree of or falling over in the dirt. A few weeks back when riding at River Bends on a far-too-worn-out tire and working on faster, flat cornering, I ended up sliding out, falling over, and scraping the front / outer-side of my left shin / calf on some hard-packed sand. This wouldn’t have been notable at all, except it was a bit deeper than normal and thus had difficulty figuring out how to treat it. I subsequently got a (likely staph) infection that made it much more painful, and took a lot longer to heal, than a normal abrasion / road rash. Thus this post, wherein I document what went wrong, what went (very) right in healing it up, and what I intend to do next time. What Went Right My shin, nicely healing and on the mend. After a week of getting worse,…