Jump to content

gauze vs plastic wrap over a tattoo


Riyko
 Share

Recommended Posts

I have tried many ways to heal a tattoo and have had the best results healing Tattoos with Plastic Wrap (I discontinue plastic wrap once tattooed area starts to peel furiously, ie, surface of skin closed completely approximately 4-7 days) ...and here is some medical backing to support this procedure...

The concept of keeping the nonsurgically closed wounds moist and protected is not new. There is documentation indicating that the ancient Mesopotamians dressed their wounds with fine linen soaked in oil. The Greeks applied animal fat and wrapped the wounds, and the Roman applied ashes, oil and herbs and wrapped the wounds. In 1927, Dr. Helmut Schmidt, from Germany, started to use cellophane, which was semi-occlusive, as a bandaging material. He and a handful of other German physicians were able to show that using cellophane rather than standard bandages cut down on infections and sped healing. In 1939, an American, Dr. E.L. Howes, published the first article, “Cellophane as a Wound Dressing,” in the medical journal, Surgery.

George Winter, in 1962, published the first controlled study describing how the occluded wounds epithelialized faster than those that were exposed to air. Since then, multiple controlled studies have established that a moist wound environment could facilitate cellular growth and collagen proliferation. Dry wound tissue is more prone to infection, scarring, delayed healing and pain. However, excessive moisture in the wound bed can impair the healing process and also cause periwound maceration.

The benefits of moisture

Likewise attitudes to ‘simple’ bandages – used to keep the wound clean and dry – are changing. No one would argue over the benefits of providing a degree of protection to wounds. But keeping it dry, usually with a gauze bandage that allows air to get to the site, and allowing a scab to form, while it doesn’t always slow the healing process, does seem more likely to leave a scar.

As far back as the 1960s research was showing that wounds that were kept moist healed better than those left to dry. However, it has taken until relatively recently for gauze-based bandages, to give way to ‘semi-occlusive’ bandages that effectively maintain the moisture balance of the wound site by sealing it off but also allowing the transmission of oxygen, nitrogen and water vapour.

The natural environment of the cell is moist. Dry cells – for instance hair and nails – are dead cells, incapable of reproducing at their point of origin. Perhaps the most important benefit of a moist bandage is that it provides an optimum environment for cells to stay alive and replicate.

Supporting the healing process

A wound is a break in the protective barrier of the skin. It allows moisture to escape from the underlying moist tissue and causes the death the superficial cells, a process that results in the familiar scab, composed largely of dried blood and other fluids.

While traditional thinking is that the scab is nature’s own barrier to moisture loss, newer thinking sees the scab as an inefficient barrier to moisture loss. Scabs also prevent new cells from colonising the wound area. When a scab is allowed to form, epidermal cells have to penetrate deeper into the dermis where the environment is moist before they can proliferate. This means that the wound will only heal from the bottom up whereas in a moist environment the wound heals from the sides and bottom at the same time.

Newer moist dressings such as polymer films and foams, hydrocolloids, hydrogels and calcium alginates allow much less moisture evaporation and may also act as insulation, helping to maintain the optimum temperature needed to support the process of cell replication.

Keeping infection at bay

Moist dressings are also many times more effective than dry dressings at preventing infections. This is as important for the child in the playground as it is to the patient in hospital, where opportunistic antibiotic resistant bacteria can so easily enter a wound site.

In this respect, moist healing is something of a paradox. Most of us would assume that a moist environment would be a breeding ground for germs, but this belief does not acknowledge how efficient the body can be at fighting infection. Nor does it acknowledge that a wound colonised by bacteria is not necessarily at risk of infection.

All wounds, no matter how carefully cleaned, are colonised by bacteria. The problem arises when harmful bacteria are given the opportunity to multiply. In a properly nourished body, natural infection fighting mechanisms can effectively keep these bacteria in check.

Moist healing actually helps decrease the likelihood of infection. There is evidence, for instance, that while bacteria can penetrate up to 64 layers of gauze they are incapable of penetrating a single layer of polymer film. There is also evidence to show that the infection rate of wounds covered with gauze is 7% compared with 2% for a moist hydrocolloid dressing.

One reason for this may be that a moist dressing helps to maintain the slightly acidic condition of the skin which helps to inhibit certain types of bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Less pain too

Patients also report less pain when wounds are kept moist. Newer dressings may also protect nerve endings helping to reduce the perception of pain. They also do less damage to the wound site when a dressing is being changed.

Another intriguing possibility about the effectiveness of moist dressings is that they help to maintain the electrical integrity of the wound site.

By keeping the site moist it allows the body’s own electrical current to flow more or less uninterrupted. It has been shown that the electrical charge of wound tissue is positive, relative to the surrounding intact skin. This positive current is thought to orchestrate the migration of healing cells to the site, but cannot flow if the skin is dry.

This understanding provides a context into studies of electroacupuncture and the successful healing of a variety of wounds, even those that had failed to heal with prior conventional therapy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but was it necessary to post a medical journal?

And you keep your tattoo wrapped for 4-7 days?? I get that you probably change it, but this isn't a wound that requires a dressing for that long. Would you wrap a scrape on your knee for 4-7 days? But whatever works for you man.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but was it necessary to post a medical journal?

And you keep your tattoo wrapped for 4-7 days?? I get that you probably change it, but this isn't a wound that requires a dressing for that long. Would you wrap a scrape on your knee for 4-7 days? But whatever works for you man.

Probably would depend on who I'd paid to scrape it and how much I care about the appearance of the lifelong scrape. Not all tattoos are healed equally and I would likely end up with a much patchier heal if I let a tattoo scab up in the way a graze/scrape/road rash does. Not saying you have to rewrap, just that some people do and it works for them.

Depending on where it is, what clothes you have to wear for work/climate, having a tattoo covered by a barrier layer of some kind can be as much a comfort thing as much as any sort of healing improver. If you read the often evangelical 'derm thread, the comfort of having a protective layer is a big bonus for some.

(I find when people begin a statement with 'not trying to be...' they are aware that they are. Along the same lines that say 'with all due respect,' usually comes with none. Nothing personal, just how it reads to me.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was my post directed towards you?

I understand the comfort thing, but that's not what was used in the medical journal of the post above mine that I was referring to.

Using the "not trying to be" or all due respect" to make yourself try to sound like the bigger person responding to a post that in no way shape or form had anything to do with you makes you look like the bigger ass than me.

Don't really see a reason that you felt it necessary to try to play big brother or protector for someone else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but was it necessary to post a medical journal?

And you keep your tattoo wrapped for 4-7 days?? I get that you probably change it, but this isn't a wound that requires a dressing for that long. Would you wrap a scrape on your knee for 4-7 days? But whatever works for you man.

For your information, I change the plastic wrap after washing thoroughly, twice a day, with a 2-3 hour air our period to led the surrounding skin get a break from the Tattoo healing protocol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

My tattooist told me to wrap my tattoo in saran wrap--but I hated it and switched to gauze. My arm couldn't breathe and was gross and sweaty (even if I wrapped it loosely). A gauze bandage seemed a lot better for me. More cleaner, I guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...