Turf Burn (An Unforgettable Pain): Treatment You Should Know

We have faced several injuries during our playtime on the ground, but I’m sure turf burn is your most painful abrasion, which you still remember. It occurred due to sliding and skidding over the artificial turf. It’s the friction of the top layer of your skin with the ground.

What is turf burn

Turf burn may seem like your skin scraped by sandpaper. It can cover a small and large area of your body. It depends on how you fall. This burn is extremely painful rather than serious. But sometimes it results as serious also if the open wound is not treated properly.

Turf burn can be seen in players in various parts of their bodies at hands, elbow, shoulders, forearm, ribs, calf, hips, thighs, and knee. It can be major or minor turf burn.

This injury is really very painful, sometimes you are compelled to think that how to sleep with turf burn.

This is very important to know about this abrasion, its symptoms, treatments, and results if it has not been taken seriously.

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What are the Symptoms of Turf Burn

This injury arose after you skidded and fell on your leg, knee, and arm. These falls may damage or scrap your upper layer of skin, leading to bleeding and scratches. But you should make it clear that every scrape is not turf burn.

It is quite different from other scrapings, which you may experience from other injuries. Friction is the main cause of these types of skin scratching. The layer of the skin removes from the heat generated from the friction.

Apart from pain, turf burn leaves a raspberry-colored sore over the injured area. The injured area may also have some amounts of bleeding. But this wound may be healed within hours or a few days, depending on the scratching stage. After healing that area shows turf burn scars.

Treatment

As we discussed earlier that this injury is more painful instead of serious. So, turf burn healing can be possible at home, it does not require any doctor. However, you need to apply first aid and basic treatment. So here we tell you how you can treat turf burn at home:

• Gently apply pressure to the wound with a clean and sanitized hand or piece of cloth to stop the bleeding.
• Clean it with plain water when the wound stops bleeding and pat the injury with a dry cloth. Ensure that you have removed all dirt, debris, and grass from the wound. This is an important process to avoid infections, although it’s painful. So do it calmly and do not apply more pressure on the wound.
• After cleaning, apply antiseptic ointment to the injury. If you didn’t find any antiseptic at that moment, you could apply a layer of fresh aloe Vera gel over the wound. Aloe vera is a natural antiseptic. It will help in inflammation and create a cooling sensation to the wound.
• You may cover the wound with any hydrogel and band, which will help the wound from entering bacteria and any infections.
• It should be advised to continue to apply this ointment and cover the wound regularly until the wound completely heals. Multiple turf burn bandage is available in the market.
• You should monitor your wound over the next few days to check whether your wound is showing any infection or healing. Immediately contact your doctor if your pain level is rising and you don’t observe any improvement over there.

Things you should avoid after getting turf burn

Turf burn can be completely healed in a few days, but there are a few activities that you should avoid any problems. These are given below:

Avoid playing sports until your abrasion is healed properly; otherwise, you could reinjure the area, which will prolong the recovery of your wound.

Some self-checks are required during this healing tenure like there should not be any extreme redness, pain, or any white or yellow secretion of fluid, which is a form of pus.

One of the major infections that can arise in turf burn is Staph infection, caused by the bacteria named staphylococcus. This germ is always found in the skin but can enter the body through scrapes and cuts. This turf burn infection is life-threatening if it enters your bloodstream.

This is the main cause that you should contact your doctor immediately if any below-giving signs are noticed, as this can be a staph infection.

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Worsening the condition of the wound, if redness and pain rise.
• Fever
• Pains in joints and muscle

Prevention

Turf burn is a common injury in a player’s life, but sometimes it creates trouble. Therefore, we should clarify this common injury so you can handle it at the prior stage.

Raspberries redness

Turf burns, scratches, bleeds, hurts, and is dangerously infected. But, of course, most players go through these injuries, and nobody claimed it seriously or did any bedrest situations arise. But it is usual for a player to keep going with its matches and play whether the condition of the playground is fine or not.

If any player faced raspberries types looks or color of the wound, he should immediately contact his doctor. A study mentioned that almost 84% of professional soccer players got major turf burns during their matches and practices.

We can’t keep other sports untouched with the turf burn, cricket, hockey, and some games whose players faced this injury. So, it’s highly recommended that all players wear padded knee caps, elbow caps, thigh guards, and other protective equipment to keep them safe from this injury.

Surface decides the type of wound

Turf burns are not actual thermal burns. Instead, this injury arises due to a combination of violent mechanical shearing of the skin and surface friction which leads to skin injury that is very painful and takes several days to heal properly.

A study explained that severe turf burns of the football player are somewhat similar to the injury of bikers which they got during road rash. In the same study, it has been examined that there is less scratching on wet natural grass than dry and synthetic turf. A victim of turf burn football player always prefers to play on natural grassland.

You are not alone on the field

Players on the field are not alone because they have multiple bacteria with them and other nasty contaminants on the pitches. The bigger problem with turf burn is that it’s a sudden exposure of the blood vessels to many bacteria; staph bacteria are one of them.

So, it has been suggested that the players take a proper bath and sanitize themselves before the matches, to minimize the risk of infection.

Players can do one more thing after the injury: the area should be clean with a disinfectant like chlorohexidine and keep it dry and cover hydrogel.

Personalize their things during the injury

It has been noticed that players generally share their belongings as their team spirit. So, it highly instructed the injured player to use their clean belongings like towels and avoid using communal pools for any further infections.

Some FAQ:

Conclusion:

Artificial turf is a synthetic surface that is generally used to make fields and pitches look alike real grass. Third-generation turf is used nowadays, which is different from the first- and second-generation turf fields. Third generation turf has multiple layers.

At the bottom layer is gravel, asphalt, or concrete base. Next, a shock-absorbing pad is positioned on the top of the base after that turf has been placed, made of fibers that look like grass.

Silica sand and tiny rubber pellets are used to fill the space between the fibers. This process of filling is called infill, which varies between fields.

So, it’s obvious to get hurt while falling on such fields and get injuries like turf burn. It occurs from sliding and skidding. It is considered a minor injury. But it is also at risk of getting infections such as Staph or MRSA. Sometimes debris is also stuck in the wound.

Although, if anyone got turf burn, it’s not a big challenge to cure it ourselves. This injury does not require any doctor’s treatment at the primary stage. But because of carelessness, or we can say entering the bacteria in blood vessels, make it hasty. Sometimes turf burn swelling creates dangerous pain.

Injured players should keep covering their wounds and monitor them for a couple of days until their wounds heal properly. In addition, there are various safety guards for different parts of the body. So, players will have to use such guards to reduce the risk of turf burn.