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Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
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and welcome to DermTV.
A very important and almost sacred rule of
skincare is that when applying
most skincare products, less is more. I said
most, because there are two
exceptions to this rule. The first exception
is traditional carbon based
sunscreens and a few weeks ago I showed you
to apply as much as a whole
ounce to your entire body to make sure your
are putting enough on to ensure
that you’ll get the full rated value of
that SPF protection. The second
exception concerns the antibiotic ointments
we use to help heal wounded,
injured skin. The type on injuries you get
from a cut, a scratch or even
coming to my office and getting a growth removed.
Under these circumstances
with the antibiotic ointment more is better
because you want to keep the
wound moist all the time. The wound heals
much faster and heals much better
in a moist environment. We used to think,
let it dry out to the air and
form a scab but we found out that those dry
scabs actually slow and impede
the healing. So, for instance, if I were to
have a wound on my hand the
size of this red mark I would put an amount
of antibiotic ointment on that
which is almost the size of a small pea. That
amount of ointment if we were
using a chem-free sunscreen would be enough
to cover my entire face but on
this wound is the proper amount to keep it
moist. I then take a band-aid,
put a band-aid on top of that and as I press
down on the band-aid it
doesn’t squeeze out from the sides but it
is nice and moist. The purpose of
the band-aid is to keep the ointment there;
it’s the ointment that keeps
the wound nice and moist. So remember, when
you’re treating skin wounds
with anti-biotic ointments, whether its polysporin,
bacitracin or aquaphor
healing ointment more is better, and you’ll
get better and faster healing.