I read a bunch of stuff on how you should keep road rash covered and moist so as to keep it from scabbing and scarring. This happened saturday, and was from a mild brush-up against a concrete wall.
I am currently using Johnson and Johnson Advanced Healing pads to cover the affected area. These are a "Second skin" aquagel type dressing, which absorb and evaporate leaking fluids from your body, while sealing the wound away from water, bacteria and dirt.
I keep getting leakage from the edge, though. The leakage is a translucent orange color. It is thick like pus, but darker and totally odorless. Apparently, it's mostly blood plasma and platelets but I can't verify this. I simply wipe it away with a wet cloth and push some excess out from under the dressings when it seems to get excessive.
Daily, right before I shower, I remove the dressing, then flush it with a skin-temperature 50% water/hydrogen peroxide mixture, then rinse it thoroughly with clear skin temperature water. After I shower, I dab it dry with a cloth and re-cover it. The "second skin" coverings turn white again over the injury, which means they're absorbing leakage, and which means my wound still is leaking.
The wound doesn't seem to be infected nor does it hurt like an infected wound.
2 questions:
1) Is the leaking fluid a bad sign? It's been about 72 hours since the scrape.
It looked like this when I got back to the trailhead (2 miles of riding after the scrape)
2) Should I just leave the dressings on while I shower and avoid flushing the wound? they seal pretty good, and would probably last through a shower or two without coming off.