Daily Dose: Dealing With Skin Tears

In our Daily Dose, a viewer tells us they seem to be having a lot of skin tears now that they're older.

Dr. Lacy Anderson explains what they could do at home to help the tears heal.

"As we get older, we lose collagen in our skin and it can even get paper thin as we age! Small trauma to the skin, like carrying plastic grocery sacks on your forearms can cause bruising and skin tears. Suturing the skin usually doesn’t work because the skin is so fragile the sutures won’t hold. The best thing to do is to clean the skin by rinsing with clean water and get some non-adherent bandages from the pharmacy.

These bandages won’t stick to the wound as it’s healing. You’ll want to apply some topical antibiotic ointment to the bandages before you apply them. This helps prevent infection and it also helps keep the bandage from sticking to the wound as it heals. Then you can wrap the non-adherent bandage with an ACE bandage over the outside to help hold the other bandage in place. You don’t want to use tape or bandages that stick to the skin because they can actually tear the skin when you try to remove them.

You’ll need to change this dressing once daily and check for infection. If the wound has a foul odor or you see any pus draining from the wound or redness spreading from the wound, be sure to see your doctor because you may need oral antibiotics.

Good luck and stay healthy!"