A wife’s tale says not to cover your wound if you want it to heal faster. Covering a wound will rotten it because your wound cannot breath. A lot of people stick to this belief and heal their wound using the advised method. The idea might seem logical and reasonable, as we are always told that our skin is also breathing. Hence, the idea of a rotten wound because of all the covering during healing process might seem sensible for most people.
How does a wound heal?
A wound healing process is a process in which skin and body tissues repair themselves after injury, by letting the epidermis and the inner skin layer form protection against outer environment. This process includes initial fibroses formation, damaged and dead cells clearing, new tissues growth, new tissues covering, and skin remodeling. This can happen either in a short or longer period of time, depending on the size and the condition of the wound and your body condition. Severalbody conditions such as diabetes, blood vessel disease, infection, and mature age may inhibit this healing process. Wound healing is induced by cleaning and infection prevention. Because when your wound is suffering from infection, the whole process will restart and it will be more complicated when the infection is bad.
Is it better to keep the wound moist or dry?
You might have been told not to cover your wound with a bandage to let it heal faster. In fact, is it really how it is? Does a wound heal faster when exposed to air? In fact, medical reviews have shown the contrary. Exposing a wound to the open air is not recommended, as it might inhibit healing process speed. Covering a wound and keeping it moist at the same time are believed to promote better healing process. Here is why:
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Covering up your wound will speed up skin healing.
When getting wounded, your skin will produce healing agent to cover the wounded area and restore it. In order to form the new skin and heal the wound, your skin has to produce new skin cells. These cells are growing sooner in a moist environment. You can create this condition by covering your wounded area with moist wound bandage. However, you also need to keep the wound moist, not wet, to avoid possible infection.
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By covering your wound, you inhibit scabs formations.
Why do you want to stop or at least, slow down scabs growth on your wounded skin? Scabs are healing inhibitor. This is because scabs are formed when your wound is in a very dry condition. When scabs are formed, you do not provide suitable condition for the new cells to grow, some of the new cells are even damaged because of the extreme dryness. When your wound is exposed to the open air, scabs will grow faster. Thus, keeping your wound moist under sterilized bandage will provide better chances for the new cells to promote faster healing process.
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Keep your wound moist and covered will promote better healing process and minimize scars.
When you keep your wound exposed, you are more likely to have more scabs. Thus, you probably will pick the scabs or unintentionally scratch them. This will not be good for the wound as picking scabs will destroy the skin tissues and can leave bad scars. Keeping your wound moist will ensure protein production and proper healing which can minimize scarring.
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Keep a wound moist will less limit your movement.
A wound that is exposed to the air might limit your movement, especially when it is located on joints. Exposing the wound to the air will induce scabs formation. These scabs will definitely limit your movement because your wound will be extremely dry and hardened. On the contrary, when you keep the wound covered and moist, it will have very little number of scab and thus, will give you more room for mobility.
Keeping your wound clean, covered, and moist might be the best way to speed up the healing process, as it provides suitable environment for the new cells to grow. Scarring can also be minimized, which is a very good news for everyone.
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