Pre-Flapper care

So I have a huge blood blister on my forefinger (from bouldering). I figure it'd become a flapper if I woulda kept climbing, but my strength was shot anyhow... so I called it a day.

I read that soaking it in an epsom salt solution, and bandaging with neosporin would help heal it. However, isn't the skin going to come off anyway? So I'm thinkin just pop it and rebandage it...

Can you heal blood blister (or any blister in general) without losing the skin?

I just want a treatment program to make climbing happen sooner than later and with minimal skin pain on that finger. It's been a while since I 'flapped'... so I can't remember how long it takes to heal.

For better or worse I always pop all my blisters *shrug*

Its never been much of an impediment to my climbing. Then again, I haven't gotten a blister in several years... I have manky calloused hands these days.

Thanks for the info. A hard dark callous sounds much better than a week+ off! But what do you mean by "tip sanding"? Lightly sanding the callous as it forms? Or just in general sanding fingertips as a skin toughener? I've often thought that climbers might benefit from the latter but have never looked into it.

johnL wrote:I'm actually surprised you don't sand your tips. Basically it's maintenance. If I don't sand my tips, they get all hard, gnarled, split, and have skin hanging all over the place. Not to mention how downright uncomfortable I am all the time. I use. Dremel tool but most people just use sandpaper or a pumice stone. If your fingers don't grow like beaver teeth, maybe it's not needed. I just assumed everyone had hands as nasty as mine. Now I'm all self conscious.

lol... well if I climb frequently for a while or sometimes if I take a break from climbing, my finger pad skin will start to peel and I'll have multiple layers and craters with fractal shaped white ridges and all hard and crusty... but I haven't been climbing much lately...

I've never sanded it, I wore those crusty formations like badges of honor, or artwork. No two alike.

But I also play some stiff stringed instruments.

Popping a flapper is fine if it's on your finger and you KEEP the skin there and can tape over it. There is virtually no pain if you tape with the skin still there. Keep it moist so the skin doesn't dry up and pull away.

If the flapper/blister is somewhere you can't tape, it's probably best to let it heal.