No, you don’t have to simply wait until your cut or abrasion heals on its own.
One thing you’ll find is that skin wound healing starts to take longer as you get older. Something that may have taken days to heal is still an issue weeks after the injury. The body has a harder time sealing up wounds and healing back to 100% when you’re older.
You don’t have to wait for nature to run its course. Instead, you can do things to speed up the healing process.
By setting the right conditions for healing and taking things designed to help you return to normal, you can shorten the time spent with bandages or on the sidelines watching other people participate in your favorite activities.
For some people, healing skin wounds faster is more important than getting back out on the pond fishing.
In addition, people have jobs to do that are impossible to perform with a bad cut or open wound. So here are some tips you can use to heal faster and feel better sooner.
Get the Cut Clean
Anytime you bleed from your skin, you need to make sure it’s clean before applying any bandages or coverings. Even if you’re not covering it, washing dirt and germs out of the wound will lower the risk of infection.
If a cut gets infected, it increases inflammation and makes it harder for your body to heal the wound. Right after an injury, rinse the wound in warm water until it’s completely clean. Then, if it’s bothering you, you can rinse it in cool water to soothe your skin.
Use an Antibiotic Cream
Antibiotic creams are affordable and easy to find in stores or online.
You can spread them over your cut or any other wound (except for burns) up to a few times each day. They kill any bacteria that threaten to get into the wound and cause an infection.
This allows your wound to heal on its own without threats from other sources. Also, make sure that you apply ointment with clean hands to prevent dirt from fingers from getting into any cuts.
Keep the Wound Covered
Keep the wound covered to help keep it safe. Most of the time, a band-aid will do the trick. Sometimes, especially for more extensive wounds or oddly-shaped wounds, you’ll need gauze and tape to cover them adequately.
A covering protects the wound from bacteria and keeps it moist to facilitate faster healing. Remember, you can’t keep the same bandage on forever. You should change them every few days or if they become soaked in blood or dirty.
Wrap them tightly at first to stop any bleeding, but keep them relatively loose to give your wound room to breathe.
Ice to Control Inflammation
Inflammation is your enemy when it comes to recovery time. To stop inflammation, you can take over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, but you should also be icing any serious wound regularly to keep swelling down.
Keeping your wound colder will lower irritation levels. In addition, it will prevent you from feeling like you need to scratch the scabs or otherwise tamper with the healing process.
All you have to do is buy a cold compress or fill a bag with ice and apply it to the wounded area for 5-10 minutes at a time. Icing reduces pain, swelling, and any other uncomfortable feeling.
It will be hard for some at first, but once the area is numb, you’ll feel much better.
Peptides & the Healing Process
Over the last 20 years, a lot of scientific research has shown the healing properties of peptides and how using them can enhance wound healing. Different peptides work to increase bone density, slow and reduce inflammation, aid cartilage repair, and more.
These peptides are short chains of amino acids that trigger a specific response in the body.
According to peptide sciences, BPC-157 is a popular healing peptide famous for its variety of applications. It was initially isolated from the stomach and was found to reduce inflammation in the GI tract as well as speed up the healing process of injured soft tissues.