Mostly, abrasion wounds caused by a contact between the skin and rough surfaces are minor and harmless. Different from some other kinds of wounds, abrasions often only affect the surface of the skin without damaging the subcutaneous tissues. When abrasion occurs, it is the sensitive nerve endings which are mostly affected, triggering severe pain, which fortunately, does not last too long. However, since abrasions are often classified as minor wounds, people often fail to care for these wounds properly, triggering worse injuries.

Abrasions and infection

Infection, in any kinds of wounds, may be caused by microorganisms and hazardous dirt. Wound infection can be superficial, which happens to the surface of the skin, and subcutaneous, which happens to the inner skin tissues. Dead tissues beneath a wound attracts harmful bacteria with its odor and may lead into infection.

With abrasions, despite its minimal pain compared to other kinds of wound and its small wound size, infection is not uncommon. Some abrasions, in fact, expose not only the epidermis layer of the skin, but also the inner tissues. Infection in abrasions are generally triggered by the presence of bacteria in the wound site as a result of the contact between the skin and strange rough objects. Abrasion-causing objects, such as the road, fingernails, and rugs might not be clean and can instead be infested by various bacteria. When you scrape your skin from the contact with these objects, infesting bacteria reside on the wound site. When the damaged tissues are dead, these bacteria feed on the dead skin cells, causing infection.

Symptoms of infected abrasions

When abrasions—and other wounds become infected, there are some observable symptoms you may notice, such as:

• Elevating burning sensation
• Severe pain
• Increasing amount of fluid drainage and the occurrence of pus drainage
• Bad odor around the wound site
• Redness around the wounded area and the streaks
• Worse swelling and inflammation around the streaks
• Increasing temperature (warmth) around the abrasions
• Fever and nausea

Infected abrasions might be able to be treated properly before the infection spreads and affect most of the tissues. Hence, as soon as you notice some of those symptoms of infected abrasions on your hand, knee, or elbow, seek for a medical help immediately. With proper medications and treatments, light infection can still even be treated at home.

Treating infected abrasions

Many people seek for anti-bacterial solution in order to eliminate infection-triggering bacteria at the wound site. The most common choices for anti-bacterial solution are hydrogen peroxide and iodine. In fact, despite the antiseptic characteristic these solution might have, continuous application of peroxide and iodine is not recommended. Peroxide and iodine are harsh chemical which may damage skin tissues when applied to an open wound. Besides, these solution also kill both bad and good bacteria present around the wound site. While killing bad bacteria causing infection is a good thing for the infected wound, eliminating good bacteria which promote proper healing is not recommended. Because of this, saline solution—or homemade warm water and a pinch of salt solution is advised. Before seeking a professional medical care, you might consider some effective ways on treating minor infected abrasions at home as follow:

• Rinse and clean the wound with over the counter or homemade saline solution, which functions as an effective anti-bacteria.
• Remove all pus drainage and other fluids from the wound site and pat the wound dry.
• Apply an antibiotic ointment onto the wound site. This will help providing proper moist environment which promotes faster new cell growth.
• Put on sterile cotton breathable dressing onto the wound site. Secure it with medical tapes to keep the wound covered. If you choose not to cover the abrasions, make sure it is clean all the time and not wet. Wet environment will trigger worse infection.
• Change the wound dressing as soon as it is full with leakage and fluids from the wound. Do not forget to wash your hands with soap before performing any procedure to the infected wound. Dirty hands carry much more bacteria, which will worsen the entire infected wound. Wearing gloves is also a good choice for keeping the wound site sterile.