Like any sport, rock climbing can put your body through a lot of wear and tear. Blisters on your hands and fingers are common minor injuries. Every climber wants to have tough hands with lots of calluses, but what happens when you push yourself too hard and end up with open blisters?
Dr. Laura Hocter-Ousley of Ohio University’s Campus Care has some general tips for how to help your blisters heal, enabling a faster return to the rocks. “If you can take time off, it’s always better, but depending on the size of the blister, they generally take maybe a week at the most to heal.”
Still, how you handle the blister problem is important, and she offered some recommendations:
- “Generally, you want to keep the area clean, and protect it. Keeping it as dry as possible.” Using solutions such as alcohol pads or soap and water will help you get the bacteria out of the open blister. Any dirt and foreign materials you leave in the blister, just like a cut, produce a risk for infection.
- “Keep the area protected.” You should wear band aids or blister band aids during the day to prevent the sites from being bumped or over used, which delays healing. “In the evenings and at night you should take the band aids off and let the area breath, this helps the blister dry out too.”
- If you happen to get a blood blister, which occurs when the surface of the skin doesn’t break and blood pools under the skin, it’s best to leave it alone.
So, if you push yourself too hard at the crag or gym and pay the price with blisters, take some time off and care for your hands. Within a week, you should be climbing strong once again.
Wood River Rock 