Coral Scrapes and Cuts – Divers Alert Network

Cuts and scrapes are the most common injuries incurred by divers and snorkelers. DAN receives about one inquiry a week related to someone who has come into contact with coral. A burning sensation, pain and itching are common and may also be accompanied by a rash. These injuries can have a latent evolution and take weeks or months to heal, confusing both patients and clinicians.

Mechanisms of Injury

Soft living tissues cover the surface of corals. In the case of stony corals, the rigid (abrasive) structure underneath makes the coral’s soft tissue easy to tear and get into the scrape or cut. Foreign material can prolong the wound-healing process since the different antigens and substances cause an acute inflammatory process and infection. Cuts and scrapes from sharp-edged coral and barnacles tend to fester and may take weeks or even months to heal. Granulomas can form if debris from the original wound remains in the tissue. The body attempts to remove it, resulting in an itchy rash or papule (small, raised, tender bump) that lasts for some time before the body eliminates it.

While most “raspberries” generally heal quickly, skin abrasions from a marine environment can sometimes be more challenging to treat than those we get from outdoor activities such as baseball or bicycling. Whether it is a coral, a rock or a wreck, they all share a common factor: They are covered by living marine organisms, which makes coral cuts and scrapes unique.

Manifestations

The extent of the reaction depends on the presence and amount of toxins, the size and location of the abrasion and the pre-existing sensitivity of the injured person. The most common manifestations are a burning sensation, pain and itching. A rash may accompany the injury if the coral is a hydroid, such as fire coral.

Most animals of class Hydrozoa become hydroids as a life stage. They are predominantly colonial, and while most of them are marine creatures, you can find a few species in freshwater environments.

Fire corals are cnidarians, so they contain nematocysts. Touching them with a simple rub can cause mechanical activation and envenomation. The manifestation is usually blistering, which typically appears a few hours after contact. They typically resolve in a few days, but it is quite common for these injuries to relapse within a week or two after what seemed to be healing progress. This delayed reaction is typical of these types of envenomations.

Prevention

When underwater, try to avoid contact with coral or any other living creature. Whenever possible, wear a wetsuit or dive skin to protect yourself if you are accidentally pushed into coral by another diver or a current. Ocean divers should consider a marine animal first aid kit for their travels. Ready supplies will speed up the time to properly administer first aid for injuries. Additionally, for divers who want to learn more about the various marine life injuries, there are courses in marine life identification, first aid courses and a variety of books and publications available.

First Aid

• Scrub the cut vigorously with soap and water, and then flush the wound with large amounts of water.
• Flush the wound with a half-strength solution of hydrogen peroxide in water. Rinse again with water.
• Apply a thin layer of antiseptic ointment, and cover the wound with a dry, sterile and non-adherent dressing. If you have no ointment or dressing, you can leave the wound open.
• Clean and re-dress the wound twice a day.
• If the wound develops a crust, use wet-to-dry dressing changes. Put a dry sterile gauze pad over the wound and soak it with saline or a diluted antiseptic solution (such as 1% to 5% povidone-iodine in disinfected water). Allow it to dry then rip the bandage off the wound. The dead and dying tissue should adhere to the gauze and lift free. The tissue underneath should be pink and may bleed slightly but should be healing. Change the dressings once or twice a day. Use wet-to-dry dressings for a few days or until they become non-adherent. Then resume the regular wound dressing described above.
• Look for any signs of infection: extreme redness, red streaks on the extremity, pain, fever, pus or swollen lymph glands. If you have any, consult a qualified health professional about starting an antibiotic. A possible Vibrio bacteria infection can cause illness and even death in someone with an impaired immune system (e.g., from AIDS, diabetes or chronic liver disease).
• Watch for coral poisoning, which can occur if abrasions or cuts are extensive or from a particularly toxic species. Symptoms include a wound that heals poorly or continues to drain pus, swelling around the cut, swollen lymph glands, fever, chills and fatigue. If you have these symptoms, see a physician.

Complications

The most frequent complications from non-stinging coral scrapes are inflammation (which leads to poor healing) and less commonly a secondary infection. Proper wound cleaning is crucial. If fire coral is the culprit, then a diluted acetic acid solution, such as household white vinegar, is a reasonable topical decontaminant and should be used as a soak to reduce the pain. Immersion in hot water can reduce the symptoms. Hot water is ideal, but you can use instant hot packs, cold packs or ice packs. Provide symptomatic treatment for the inflammatory response. Steroid creams are rarely helpful, and they can prolong a skin infection. If the inflammation is severe, you may administer systemic steroids in a moderate, tapering dose under the supervision of a trained medical provider. Oral antihistamines can sometimes help reduce the itching or burning sensation. 

Possible Complications of an Old Problematic Wound

It is not uncommon for divers to contact DAN concerned about a minor skin abrasion on their hands, knees or elbows that happened months ago and has not healed despite proper care. These chronic wounds often have a red and bumpy appearance, occasionally develop a crust and are usually painless. If common antibiotic ointments do not help, divers wonder if the cause may be a marine-specific pathogen.

Divers with an open wound, even a small cut or scrape, are at risk for skin infections. When an old problematic wound fits the descriptions above, it might have become infected with an opportunistic pathogen known as Mycobacterium marinum. Despite the name there are no marine-specific pathogens that affect humans. Some infections are more common in aquatic environments. M. marinum is responsible for a condition commonly known as fish tank granuloma, or aquarium granuloma.

The red and bumpy nodules, no larger than a centimeter, are granulomas — inflammatory immune cells trying to wall off the pathogen. Granulomas are usually isolated but can sometimes appear in small clusters. They are not necessarily painful. There may or may not be discharge from the wound.

Characteristics of

M. marinum That Affect Healing

• The pathogen is opportunistic. It causes infection only in the right conditions (environmental and patient-related), so it is often not considered as a potential culprit.
• It likes cooler temperatures, which is why these wounds tend to flourish in areas with lower body temperatures such as hands, knuckles, elbows and knees.
• Only specific antibiotics work, so the typical antibiotic treatments are usually unsuccessful.
• The life cycle is slow, which means treatments last a long time. Sometimes patients will abandon what could have been a successful treatment or doctors may look for other potential explanations for the symptoms.
• It requires specific culture media that a doctor would not ask for unless they suspected this pathogen. Standard culture results are often negative, which delays the diagnosis.

Allow your doctor to examine the wound and follow their standard procedures. The doctor will probably ask you how it happened or when it started. Tell them about the superficial abrasion in a marine environment. You may want to ask specifically if M. marinum could be the cause. Your doctor does not need dive-specific medical knowledge for this type of issue.

Fitness to Dive

Always take care of wounds and clean them thoroughly no matter the severity. The skin is our most effective and efficient means of immunological defense. A compromised wound can get seriously infected.

As a rule, treat wounds properly and let them heal before diving. This is particularly important before traveling to a remote location or one with limited local medical care capabilities. A skin lesion with the potential for infection might warrant a more conservative decision to stay ashore if you have such a trip planned.

Chronic skin lesions require specific consultation with your physician team before diving. Your doctor may prescribe treatment or a protective covering to prevent skin breakdown.

How to treat Coral Cuts and Scrapes · Aussie Divers Phuket

Dealing with coral cuts and scrapes is a common part of scuba diving and here is some tips on how to treat them.

Although scuba divers do their best not touch coral, accident contact does occur. This can cause itching, burning sensations, pain and sometimes rashes. These injuries can take weeks, even months to heal.

Here we will look at why this is so and what we can do to treat these injuries if they occur.

What is Happening in the Injury

Corals are covered by a soft layer of living tissues. The soft layer is situated on top of the hard layer of coral. When you cut yourself on some, the under hard layer does the cutting and the soft top layer matter remains in the cut itself. This matter is what inflames the wound and delays the healing process.

So long as that material remains in the wound it will have difficulty in healing. As your body is trying to remove the marine organisms you can get itchy rashes and small red bumps. These are unique to land based injuries and are often more difficult to treat.

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How to Prevent Coral Injuries

Obviously try to avoid coral contact. If you are having regular issues they you should be increasing the distance between you and the coral. Wetsuits do assist as barrier between you and the coral. Ultimately, regular injuries may be due to poor diving techniques and it may be that you should have a professional look at your dive technique or look at does a course like the PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy course.

Are some coral more harmful?

The amount that you body reacts to the coral has to do with the amount of toxins in the coral, the size of the abrasion and where it is located. Also pre-existing sensitivity may contribute.

Corals such as Fire corals are cnidarians, so they contain nematocysts. Contacting them with a simple rub can cause mechanical activation and envenomation. The manifestation is usually blistering, which typically appears a few hours after contact.

How to Treat an Coral Injury

Clean and scrub the cut with soap and water. Continue to flush the wound with lots of water. You may need to repeat this.

Wash the wound with a 50% hydrogen peroxide/water solution and rinse thoroughly.

Continue this twice daily.

If the wound develops a a crusty outer, use wet-to-dry dressing changes. Put a dry sterile gauze pad over the wound and soak it with saline or a diluted antiseptic solution (such as 1% to 5% povidone-iodine in disinfected water). Allow it to dry then rip the bandage off the wound. The dead and dying tissue should adhere to the gauze and lift free. The tissue underneath should be pink and may bleed slightly but should be healing. Change the dressings once or twice a day. Use wet-to-dry dressings for a few days or until they become non-adherent. Then resume the regular wound dressing described above.

Inspect for any signs of infection: extreme redness, red streaks on the extremity, pain, fever, pus or swollen lymph glands. If this occurs, consult a doctor about starting an antibiotic. A possible Vibrio bacteria infection can cause illness and even death in someone with an impaired immune system (e.g., from AIDS, diabetes or chronic liver disease).

Continue to inspect for coral poisoning. If there continuing issues or doubt, contact your doctor immediately.

Happy Diver Racha Islands Scuba Diving Phuket

Continuing to dive

Always treat wounds seriously no matter how small they are. Even small wounds can get seriously infected and be detrimental to our health.

It is recommended that you let the wounds heal before continuing to dive.

As always, if you have continued issues or you are not sure please contact you medical practitioner. The cuts and scrapes should be taken seriously.

Read the full article here on the Divers Alert Network website.

By Darren Gaspari

Proud owner and active PADI Gold Course Director of Aussie Divers Phuket, a professional and awarded PADI 5 Star Instructor Development Scuba Diving Centre. Member of the PADI Advisory Board for the eLearning modules 2019 and 2020.

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Posted in Diving Health on April 26, 2021.

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The Phuket scuba diving industry took a pretty big hit during the COVID pandemic. Phuket was isolated from the outside world for almost 18 months. During the period there were times when there was no scuba diving in Phuket at all. Even our local beach dives at Kata Beach were banned for an amount of time.
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Phuket is a popular tourist destination in Thailand, known for its stunning beaches and crystal-clear waters. It’s also a haven for scuba divers, offering some of the best diving spots in the world. The warm and clear waters around Phuket are home to a diverse range of marine life, including sea turtles, barracudas, and colorful corals.
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Anyone that has completed his or her PADI Open Water or PADI Scuba Diver Course and would have heard that motto. All right, it sounded corny and in fact it’s over use probably is however PADI got it spot on. Learning to scuba dive does in fact open up a whole world of places to go, lets you meet a vast range of different people and do many different things you wouldn’t have normally done.
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Gems from A to Z ― Coral – sea flower ― Empire of Gems

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When
in the old days it was about the origin of gems, then the most
unusual and irrational legends and rumors. Another stone was supposedly
frozen drop of water, another was the petrified blood of a dragon, the third
was considered a fragment of the underwater castle of the sea goddess … Of course, only grains
truths are found by modern researchers in these stories, which, when
all their beauty and flamboyance are nothing more than fairy tales – how can it be
stone as a frozen part of a living creature? .. However, among the precious
stones one most interesting specimen, the origin of which
really poetic and magical, we got used to it, and do not notice how
its appearance on our planet is strange in its essence. ..

From file:
Coral – organogenic gem, hard calcareous
skeleton of polyps living in the Indian and Pacific oceans, Caribbean and Red
and other warm seas. Hardness 3.5-4.0 on the Mohs scale, density
1.3-2.6 g/cm3, matte gloss. Color – red, pink, blue, white,
black. Other names: kinglet, dragonite.

Corals are a living legend of antiquity, because in essence they are
skeletons of living creatures, coral polyps that inhabit giant
colonies, and after their death, colorful thickets of “sea flowers” remain
– corals. Accumulations of corals are called reefs – especially famous
The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, which extends over
than 2000 meters. There are both coastal and barrier reefs,
located in shallow water next to the “mainland”, and coral
atolls and “banks” that are on the high seas. especially beautiful
it is the atolls – in the blue water the outlines of a snow-white
coral ring, inside which is a secluded lagoon . ..
The fabulous gardens of the sea give shelter to hundreds of species of living creatures – fish,
mollusks, algae – it should be noted that the coral polyp
carnivorous, and the beautiful coral ornament you are today
hold in your hands, once actively moved and absorbed food of course,
the coral that jewelers use is just the skeleton of a polyp, but
the human skeleton is an integral part of us…

Old
polyps die, new ones grow on their “bones”, and a small reef
capable of growing into an entire island. The opinion that the only form
coral is a kind of “branch”, erroneously corals can look like balls,
mushrooms, be flat or vice versa lush, braid the remnants of the one that has sat down on
the ship is so tightly stranded that traces of human work will be drowned in thick
coral thickets. As for color, corals are different here too.
amazing diversity: in total there are more than 2500 species
corals, and about 350 colors, from deep red to snow white.
There are pink corals, from almost white to deep salmon, blue and
blue, brown-gold (“golden Hawaiian”), black,
orange-red . .. It is customary to call corals in Italian terms, which
is certainly due to the fact that for many centuries corals were actively mined on
Mediterranean coast. Red “rosso”, orange-pink “secondo”
coloro”, dark red “carbonetto”, white “bianco” … And a special
pale pink stones became popular – “pelle de angelo”, or
“angel skin”

Humanity has known corals since ancient times. Back in ancient Sumer
corals were used for decorative purposes – a Sumerian vase is known,
decorated with corals, which is 5000 years old. According to Pliny,
in ancient India, corals were valued no less highly than pearls, because
that these stones were prescribed the property of protecting the owner from all
dangers. Corals were a symbol of longevity in ancient Greece.
medieval Europe was marked by purity. Corals like in the West
so in the East they inlaid horse harness and armor, weapons and
bindings of sacred books, carved rosaries and necklaces … Coral
decorations are also known to many tribal peoples – Mexican Indians
coral beads are worn to ward off evil spirits on many islands
of the southern seas, local residents use corals not even as decorations, but also
in the form of practically useful materials: from pieces of a gem they make
spinners, graters, files, water filters.

Interesting
that in Russia, neither in the Middle Ages, nor at a later time, corals did not
were especially popular, which is rather strange – after all, a stone is very
beautiful, has mostly red-pink, so beloved in our country,
range of colors, mined in an amount no less than rubies or
sapphires … But in Europe, especially in Italy, where red
corals, this gem was a success – even from untreated twigs
made amulets “cornetti” in the form of a human figure, corals
used in agriculture – corals were hung on tree branches,
for a more abundant harvest. And if the copy was too damaged, had
obvious defects and porosity and process it for decoration was
impossible, then the coral was ground into powder “coralium album”, which
sold in every pharmacy – healers were confident in its miraculous
properties.

And, I must say, they were not mistaken! It has recently become clear that coral
especially valuable in the form of a powder, which is diluted in water or
included in the medicine. It is a source of special hormones that affect
proper protein metabolism in the body, normalizing muscle function
uterus, respiratory and digestive systems. Especially useful
a certain type of coral that lives near the Japanese island of Okinawa –
its structure and composition are as close as possible to human bones. Japanese
doctors make dentures from white corals, as
claim that such teeth are the strongest and most durable. And the calcium
contained in corals, being ingested with water in which
dissolves within five minutes, is instantly absorbed, unlike
“ordinary” calcium, and, according to doctors, is of great benefit –
normalizes blood sugar levels, reduces the risk of
cardiovascular diseases, cleanses the excretory system, increases
elasticity of muscles and joints … However, do not forget that you can’t just
crush freshly bought coral jewelry – as a medicine
suitable only powder from natural, not processed with dyes and
coral chemicals, and even the most expensive coral inserts
always treated with colored wax for durability
environment, so coral calcium is bought only from
reliable manufacturer and already prepared.

But
coral, like any gem, has a powerful preventive
impact, if you just wear jewelry from it. Yes, beads
red corals have long been given to girls – they improve complexion and
cleanse the skin. In addition, the red coral necklace stops
bleeding, serves as a warming agent, helps with colds or
flu, and those who easily “catch” throat diseases are recommended to wear
such decoration all winter for prevention. Coral is great
restores all organs of the throat and larynx – it is good to wear it for those who
you have to constantly talk a lot and strain your ligaments, for example
singers, orators. And beads made of coral and pearls will save the representatives
the fair sex from the hardships associated with monthly ailments.
Pink corals are a “cure” for headaches, soothing
a remedy that relieves its owner of insomnia and nervous
arousal.

Coral, being associated with the element of Water, is a talisman
travelers who keep the owner from natural disasters, fires,
unpleasant surprises along the way, the security
properties black coral. In addition, any corals are protective amulets.
against the evil eye, bad people, violence and poisoning. White and pink
corals are considered feminine stones that bring happiness to their owners
in family life, and it must be worn in the form of beads or earrings, and
red – male. It is better not to confuse the “sex” of the stone, because otherwise
the gem will give its owner the features of a different sex: a man will make
capricious and weak, a woman – rude and masculine. However, young
On the contrary, red coral gives charmers activity and energy.
Coral is useful for people of art – artists, poets, musicians – because
it gives subtlety of perception, develops imagination. piece of coral
at home will bring you good luck in everything, and placed under the pillow of a child
will protect the baby from nightmares and protect his health. Constantly
wearing coral jewelry is not recommended – it can form in
man excessive capriciousness and even adventurism.

Stone
needs careful handling – it should not fall on
cosmetics, hot water, it cannot be cleaned with
sharp objects, metal brushes. Coral does not like bright light
therefore, always put the jewelry in the box, corals only clean
with a soft damp cloth. And don’t forget – natural coral cannot
be cheap, because in our market it is relatively rare sellers
from China and India are often offered under the guise of “surprisingly inexpensive”
coral fake made of painted plastic or ceramic glass,
fused with coral chips. Contrary to popular belief, corals
do not fade from the sun or contact with the human body, if
these are high-quality, properly processed stones – and still observe
some degree of caution. Astrologers say that corals can
wear almost all signs of the zodiac, especially Taurus, Aries, Cancer, Libra and
Fish are not good for coral Lions.

When choosing coral jewelry, remember that you are literally holding
sense of the word, a living stone, the very essence of the ocean, which once,
like a strange flower, freely surrendered to the will of soft waves,
swaying in the deep blue. And the coral “plucked” from the atoll looks like
cut flower – someone throws out a plant just by looking at it,
someone makes a beautiful bouquet, and for a short time the flower takes on
second life. Coral gets his second chance in a jewelry workshop
– and, unlike the short-lived rose or lily, the jewel
receives eternal life, and another fate is changed under the waves of pink
angel wings.

See all coral items>>>

Wooden box set of 3 pieces 34×18.5×29.5cm coral

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• 34×18.5×29.5cm
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  23×12.5×21.5cm

  Country of origin	Russia
  Intended use	Gift box
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  Special conditions	Dry, ventilated room
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  Expiry date	Expiration date unlimited

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90 046 Wooden box set of 3 pieces 34×18.