Practicing good hygiene is crucial for grapplers. Skin infections are a major concern. It’s not just up to you to prevent them, but also your gym mates. Some infections don’t hinder your grappling ability, so you may unknowingly infect others. This is why skin infections, like impetigo, are a serious threat to BJJ. Impetigo is a common skin infection in full-contact sports. Today we’ll cover its causes and treatment, and share tips for prevention. Let’s start.
Skin infections can lead grapplers to hurry back to the gym, even if they don’t affect their grappling ability. However, this behavior puts others at risk and endangers the gym. As a result, skin infections pose a severe threat to BJJ students and gyms. Impetigo is a highly contagious bacterial skin disease found in full-contact sports, including Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Today we’re going to explore Impetigo in BJJ, its causes, and how you can treat it. We will also share some personal and collective tips to help you prevent getting Impetigo in the first place. Let’s get right to it.
Common causes of Impetigo in BJJ
Impetigo is a bacterial skin infection that affects both infants and young children, as well as full-contact athletes. Two types of bacteria, staph and strep, cause it. These bacteria are always present on human skin but don’t always cause infection. In BJJ, cuts, bruises, and insect bites provide opportunities for the bacteria to invade. However, physical contact with an infected person can also cause impetigo, even without a break in the skin.
People with diabetes and immune deficiencies or those with underlying skin conditions such as eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, and scabies are at a higher risk of getting impetigo.
You can contract impetigo by touching or sharing items with an infected person, such as towels, gi, or training equipment. Warm, humid weather and crowded spaces are ideal conditions for impetigo to thrive. BJJ gyms, typically hot and crowded, provide a perfect environment for infectious skin diseases to spread.
What Areas of the Body are Most Susceptible to Impetigo
Impetigo commonly affects the face and limbs, where skin is most exposed. Itchy reddish sores appear around the mouth and nose when one or both bacteria infect the skin. The sores may blister and then rupture, creating a yellow or honey-colored crust. Scratching the sores may spread the infection to other parts of the skin, or through contaminated gear or towels. Impetigo can also cause swollen glands and flu-like symptoms like fever, headaches, and fatigue.
In some cases, a more severe form of the infection called ecthyma may arise. This type of impetigo produces painful fluid-filled sores, usually on the arms and legs. The sores redden and develop into ulcers that can break open and leave scars after they heal.
How to Treat Impetigo
Impetigo can be highly contagious when training jiu jitsu, but easily treated. See a doctor as soon as symptoms appear. Mild cases can be treated with antiseptic creams or topical antibiotics like mupirocin or retapamulin ointments. Oral antibiotics like amoxicillin or erythromycin may be prescribed for severe cases. Penicillin is the recommended drug if streptococci is the sole cause of the impetigo.
With treatment, you can expect to be cured of impetigo within 7-10 days. If left untreated, you can expect to recover from impetigo within three weeks, but this just increases the risk of you getting ecthyma or the infection spreading to other parts of your skin and other students in the gym, and then back to you. A few weeks away from BJJ training will help you recover from Impetigo and prevent a potential outbreak.
Impetigo Treatments to Avoid
Grapplers often try to treat infections themselves so they can return to training as quickly as possible. Some home remedies can work for various infections, but you always risk aggravating an otherwise mild or innocuous condition. For impetigo, commonly employed alternative medicine such as honey and apple cider vinegar have no medical backing and should not be used as a replacement for prescribed drugs. Apple cider vinegar, in particular, may have adverse effects on the skin and worsen the sores.
Home remedies are not the only treatments to be wary of when treating impetigo. Topical antiseptics are inferior to topical antibiotics and should not be used as a replacement. However, for stubborn cases of impetigo, antimicrobials should not be used so persistently as they may contribute to the development of resistant strains of the bacteria such as MRSA.
We should add that recovering from impetigo does not mean you are now immune from it. You can always get impetigo multiple times if caution is not taken. Leaving the infection on its own may cause the sores to spread to other areas of the body. Complications associated with impetigo like cellulitis, ecthyma, and kidney problems are rare, but reinfection puts you at greater risk of developing them.
This helpful video breaks down how you can properly manage an impetigo infection.
How to Prevent Impetigo When Training BJJ
Preventing impetigo while training BJJ is better than trying to control its spread in the gym. Understand the infection’s causes and risk factors. Being aware is not sufficient; personal and collective hygiene tips are necessary. Students and gyms should implement these to avoid contracting and spreading impetigo and other skin infections.
Practice Good Personal Hygiene
Practicing good personal hygiene during jiu jitsu will ensure that you don’t get infected with impetigo and help avoid spreading it. A number of hygienic practices are absolutely required of you as a BJJ student. Training with big crowds is one of the risk factors for getting impetigo, so you may want to check out our article about BJJ open mat, where we discuss some of these good practices. Generally, you will need to:
Shower after training
Showering immediately after training will help you eliminate any bacteria lurking on your skin from being in contact with an infected individual or equipment. Using antibacterial soaps like Defense soap works to kill bacteria and fungi on your skin. Staph and strep may be abundant in the BJJ gym and on your skin after training, but it is harder for these bacteria to flourish when you shower down immediately.
Train with rash guards and spats
Rash guards and spats reduce the area of your skin exposed to physical contact, and they help cover cuts or bruises you may have. One of the risk factors of impetigo is skin breakages, and using rash guards or spats reduces the chances of your skin getting scratched or bruised.
Wash your training gear regularly
You must wash your training gear after use as bacteria from infected students or equipment may cling to them. It is not advisable to repeat wearing your training gear without laundering them. Your gi, spats, belt, shorts, and singlet should be used once and washed before being used again. It always helps to have an extra pair of your training apparel, so you can switch between them.
Avoid sharing clothing items
It can be hard not to share training equipment in the gym, but you can avoid sharing personal items such as training gear, towels, and washcloths. Honestly, sharing personal items is like asking to be infected, and training BJJ requires you to exercise more responsibility than that.
Cover cuts and sores properly
Covering cuts and sores prevents you from getting impetigo and reduces the risk of spreading it if you’re already infected. Of course, taking some time off from the gym is more advisable and responsible until you fully recover from the infection. But if you’re unsure of your condition (it may only be psoriasis which is not contagious), you should cover your wounds, sores, and cuts.
Covering sores and blisters when you have impetigo also helps you avoid scratching them, which may cause them to spread to other parts of your skin or items you touch. Before covering your sores or blisters, you should properly wash the area with soap and water, and you may apply anti-itch medicine to help with the scratching. It would help if you kept your nails short to avoid damaging your skin when you have to scratch, as this can cause your impetigo to get even worse.
Collective Hygiene
The battle to prevent skin infections while practicing BJJ can’t only be fought individually. As a gym owner or teacher, you need to have open discussions with your students about infections and how they can be avoided. You may need to set some cleanliness rules that enforce showering, always turning up for training in clean gear, and discourage sharing personal items. Additionally, you’re also responsible for taking care of the environment of the gym as a whole, and this involves:
Clean mats and other training equipment regularly
Dirty training mats and equipment harbor germs, and you must clean them regularly. You can involve the students if they’re interested, and this may encourage them to embrace the demands of hygiene in the gym fully. It may even help build team spirit.
Cleaning and disinfecting the facility
Apart from cleaning the mats and other equipment, you also need to clean and disinfect the entire training facility from time to time. You can schedule a thorough periodic cleaning and disinfection of the changing rooms, toilets, common area, and surfaces to prevent the accumulation of bacteria or fungi in the environment.
Provide soap and sanitizer
Regular handwashing goes a long way in preventing the spread of contagious diseases. You can also offer sanitizers with at least 62% alcohol as an alternative.
Final Thoughts
To recap, Impetigo is a prevalent skin infection among BJJ grapplers. It’s caused by two types of bacteria and is highly contagious but mild. Although it may heal on its own, treating it early reduces complications and transmission risk. Treatment may require time off training, but it won’t impact your learning.
To avoid impetigo in BJJ, practice good personal and collective hygiene. Speak up if you see unsanitary conditions in the gym or with another student. Gym owners should also care for the facility and involve students in promoting good hygiene. Impetigo can spread quickly, but following prevention tips can help avoid shutdowns.