Taking Care of Scraped Knees

Or, The Case of My Dad and Neosporin
I’d like to say, for the record, that I always thought it was weird that Neosporin had the word “spore” in the middle of it. That might have been, partly, why I always liked it.

I also know that I liked it because my Dad was totally obsessed with it when I was a kid. Back in the old days, before “store brands” were reinvented, my Dad basically followed us around with a tube of Neosporin, a box of Band-Aids, pliers and a bottle of Seagram’s 7.

The pliers and whiskey were really only handy for loose teeth and such, but for just about every other malady, Dad took a page from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and used a cure-all approach– Neosporin for everything from broken skin to broken curfews.

The Details

Now, Momcentral.com sent me a few of the latest versions of Dad’s favorites: Neosporin + Pain Relief (regular and Maximum Strength, which has the additional Bacitracin in it, making it a “triple antibiotic”) and the Neo-To-Go Spray, which is a liquid spray pump for easy stowage in your satchell, fanny pack or man-bag.

Neo To Go! I thought was quite handy, and my sister, Mary agreed– even said she had bought one already.

I checked the Walgreens website, however, and noticed that the .26 fl oz. size costs $6.50 (you can get it on Amazon for $3.50). That’s an awful lot for convenience. Also Mary said some piece of the packaging broke off whilst living in her purse, although it was still useable. Dad would have had a field day with that piece of news– no namby-pamby Neosporin he ever used would have had time to break before he used up a tube on the six of us.

Neosporin + Pain Relief is basically the same old Neosporin you have always used, even in the same old tube packaging (which I personally think is superior in its simplicity to the plastic casing).

It has Praxomine in it, some form of external analgesic. I just happened to have a very painful hangnail (don’t laugh! It really hurt!) and I tried it.

It did take the pain away at first but it was back in a few minutes. I think Dad’s pain removal technique of just telling us to “Stop crying or I’ll get out the iodine!” might work better, but I am not sure that is legal anymore.

WWDD?

So all in all, I was glad to see these “new” Neosporins were still the old Neosporins really, just with minor updates.  My Dad always had great, simple solutions to life’s little problems … like WD-4o for mobilizing anything NON-human, and a Labeler for quick and easy organization techniques! I can’t imagine the marketers at Johnson & Johnson could ever outdo Dad for the best answer to scraped knees.