blood blister

[momof5]

DD has a very large and very raised blood blister on the palm of her hands that happened today on bars. What should I do with it? What will help it heal the fastest? Should I pop it then disinfect it? Or what?

 

[All Chalked Up]

When we get them at gym, we have to swing until it pops, then put Polysporin, etc on it.

 

[Itstrueimagymnast]

I would pop it. It is going to pop anyways, and it is kind of gross to get blood all over the bar. Just pull the skin up, and it should pop

 

[coachmolly]

They will deflate on their own, but that's probably only practical if she has a few days of no bars. If you do decide to pop it, make sure you are vigilant about keeping it clean.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Usually when I get these, I puncture them to let them drain, but leave the skin on.

 

[emacmommy]

I agree with Taucer, we pop them with a sterilized needle, drain it, leave the skin on for a day or two, then trim the now deadskin off when the new skin has had a chance to acclimate (nice word huh) to not being surrounded with icky bloody fluid. If it's a deep one near a callouse we try and trim the callouse down at that time too.

Deep ones are likely to want to crack when heeling so we counsel to keep it as clean as possible and use ointments such as a triple antibiotic or bag balm, while it is cracking. Again, if it's deep and very raw we don't want it to get infected either so I suggest keeping it losely covered a day or two, but not really any longer because it will eventually need exposure to air to heal and toughen. After cracks are under control, and the new skin is still likely to feel "chapped" like chapped lips, I encourage using non colored/flavored chapstick until the new skin can hold on it's own. For those gymies out there lucky enought to have a baby brother/sister, a nursing mom my still have that wonderful lanolin ointment which works great for dry chapped rips too.

Something to help encourage the new skin on a rip to heal faster is holding hot wet black tea bags, as hot as they can safely tolerate. The tannins in the tea help to "tan" the skin just like you tan leather to be more soft, supple and strong. They also have an antibiotic property like bag balm (that's the ointment farmers use on cow's udders so they don't chap and crack while being milked). It works for a sunburn too.

My MoJo has been lucky so far, only one minor rip in four years of team, about a year ago. She's using dowels now, so hopefully no rips and just some sore hands now and again when we do long circle and swing assignments. I've seen some doozies this past year with some older and maturing girls refusing to adapt to grips of any kind. That's when we try not to rub in the, don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh, and then there's the method that I used as a gymnast, decades ago, pack chalk in and get up and practice some more. We are little more humane now a days.