Burns?

[Mike Sheffield]

Cold cold pickle juice! Works everytime. I used that trick after my 2yr old niece grabbed a curling iron. My Mom was completely bewildered as I was grabbing the pickle jar out of the fridge and pouring the contents into a bowel. I put her hand in it and all screaming stopped. The burn healed very fast. Now I'm a super hero in her eyes.

[Mike Blue]

Cold cold pickle juice! Works everytime. I used that trick after my 2yr old niece grabbed a curling iron. My Mom was completely bewildered as I was grabbing the pickle jar out of the fridge and pouring the contents into a bowel. I put her hand in it and all screaming stopped. The burn healed very fast. Now I'm a super hero in her eyes.

 

Another variation on this theme is using vinegar (pretty much a pickling juice itself) on things like sunburn.

[JJ Simon]

ionized silver liquid. I takes the sting out, kills bacteria and heals stuff very fast.

[Meisenmann]

Another variation on this theme is using vinegar (pretty much a pickling juice itself) on things like sunburn.

 

Dude...there is nothing wrong with thinking outside of the box sometimes. But injuries or burns are not one of these times. I am sure you really want to help and only have the best intentions.

 

But your medical advice is far from helpful, to put id mildly. Giving people the advice to administer heat to a burn or apply irritating substances like vinegar instead of giving the correct treatment is downright destructive.

 

If you got a burn, the first priority is to cool the location on your body for a long enough time. Like another one posted: For longer than you would actually think. That means cooling for up to 20 minutes under cold, running tap water. Ice or other extremely cold mediums can be counter-productive (too much vascular constriction) and should be avoided if possible.

 

If the burn covers a big area, looks bad or deep you should consult a doctor or visit an ER. If in doubt, do so too. If it is only a minor, trivial burn you can treat it yourself according to your own experience with antiseptic creams and so on (after cooling of course). You should apply a sterile dressing and keep your finger from any blisters (do not open).

 

I can only strongly advise anybody here against trusting Mike Blues advice.

[Mike Blue]

...I can only strongly advise anybody here against trusting Mike Blues advice.

 

That you interpret my list of folk remedies as advice is entirely up to you. I specified that in the course of my life I have collected a variety of folk remedies. This thread had others expand into that dimension before I made my comment, yet you do not take them to task. I have not advised any specific course of action as others have.

 

I pointed out contrary evidence to a commonly accepted treatment. I am not in a position of authority in this place and expect no one to follow me. In any regard, all advice on this forum is free. That should be enough to determine its worth. Rather than blister me, perhaps it may have been a better service to produce a valid criticism of the folk treatment and evidence for not using it. Castigating me is not allowing them to make up their own mind, is it?

Edited May 2, 2011 by Mike Blue

[kyle o'donnell]

use a knife to cut out the burned flesh.

 

 

lol

[cdent]

Awe shucks, I kinda like this place. If one does a bit of looking around, you can easily sort the trusting advice. Rises to the top, consistently.

 

Just supposing, Craig

[Howard Clark]

post deleted. It was not helpful.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Howard Clark

[Meisenmann]

Castigating me is not allowing them to make up their own mind, is it?

 

I even said that I am sure that you are a good intentioned fellow that wants to help. I do not know how that is castigating or blistering you and was by no means my intention.

Anyway, I had to somehow express that nobody should do the things to their burns that you suggested (or told a tale of or anything, hidden subtexts are beyond my grasp ot the english language to be honest) because it will do more harm than good.

 

 

Rather than blister me, perhaps it may have been a better service to produce a valid criticism of the folk treatment and evidence for not using it.

 

Usually, the one advocating an alternative treatment to a well established one should provide an explanation why doing so is superior and at least a theory how this could work. You did not do that. But that is how the scientific method works (well, at least partially) and the only way to reasonably acquire knowledge.

 

It is not my turn to now defend the established way of treating burns. The explanation is simple though and I will write it down anyway. The heat causes your skin to burn. But the heat does not stay on the surface of your finger (or other body part) but goes deeper and causes damage to these deeper tissues.

You apply cold for a long time to minimise deeper damage and inflammatory response by seeping the additional heat out of your body faster than it would have done if you did nothing. Using sterile dressings and maybe antiobiotic ointments is pretty self explanatory.

 

Applying heat to the burn will not only not help your tissue come back to its normal temeprature but will do the contrary, the tissue will stay over temperature for a longer time (even longer than if you did nothing at all). Vinegar is acidic and irritating to your skin. It may kill some germs, but nothing that can't be safely done with antiseptics or antibiotics. How it should contribute to a healing process is beyond me.

 

I just can not let that stand, because I do not want people come harm or to worsen their wounds.

[Alan Longmire]

Meissenmann, Mike is a medical doctor, you know.

 

You don't have to take his advice, but there's no need to slam him. He clearly mentioned early on that the "alternative" cures he mentioned were just that. I know I'm not going to try the hot water thing, but I'm not going to tell anyone else they shouldn't.

 

Mike is also a well-respected smith and good friend of a great many of the most knowledgeable people on this forum. Post hasty unresearched comments at your own risk!

[Howard Clark]

I removed my comments because they were unkind and personal, thus unwise and inappropriate. Mike is a very dear friend, and one of the most knowledgeable humans I know. I reacted defensively.

 

I am sure you are motivated only with the best of intentions, Meisenmann.

[Meisenmann]

Meissenmann, Mike is a medical doctor, you know.

 

You don't have to take his advice, but there's no need to slam him. He clearly mentioned early on that the "alternative" cures he mentioned were just that. I know I'm not going to try the hot water thing, but I'm not going to tell anyone else they shouldn't.

 

Mike is also a well-respected smith and good friend of a great many of the most knowledgeable people on this forum. Post hasty unresearched comments at your own risk!

 

Well, I have postponed my final exam for a work in medical research for half a year. Afterwards, I am a medical doctor too. The methods I described are no "hasty unresearched comments".

 

I am sure Mike is a great smith and does marvellous knives. I am also sure that he is a great person and friend. But it is just that his medical advice was not sound.

 

I do not know why you think I want to slam him. I have said two times now that I think he wants to help and I do not question his good intentions. I just question that it is good advice, therefore I simply have to say nobody should do it that way because people could worsen their injuries that way.

 

 

I removed my comments because they were unkind and personal, thus unwise and inappropriate. Mike is a very dear friend, and one of the most knowledgeable humans I know. I reacted defensively.

 

I am sure you are motivated only with the best of intentions, Meisenmann.

 

I did not read them in time, but now you made me curious

 

I am. And additionally, what I write is the established method for treating burns. Everybody can treat them the way he wants. But when I read things that are clearly wrong and can get people hurt, I will express it.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Meisenmann

[Matt Bower]

I don't want to pile fuel on the fire, but I'm genuinely curious about something. Meissenmann, you haven't said specifically what harm you believe it will do to apply vinegar to a minor burn. Could you explain that?

[Alan Longmire]

I do not know why you think I want to slam him.

 

Call it a misinterpretation based on the difficulty of reading inflection on a screen.

 

I do appreciate you are acting on your own conscience with the best of intentions. I simply read into it the sort of prejudiced superiority I have heard in some western medical practitioners when alternative therapies are mentioned, and I, like Howard, jumped to the defense. I may have read that into your language when you did not intend it at all, and if so I apologize.

 

Let's all shake hands and go about our business, eh?

 

Oh, and don't get burned!

[Meisenmann]

I don't want to pile fuel on the fire, but I'm genuinely curious about something. Meissenmann, you haven't said specifically what harm you believe it will do to apply vinegar to a minor burn. Could you explain that?

 

The harm is mostly done with the warm or hot water. The vinegar I am not perfectly sure. It is at least an irritant to an already damaged skin.

 

Call it a misinterpretation based on the difficulty of reading inflection on a screen.

 

I do appreciate you are acting on your own conscience with the best of intentions. I simply read into it the sort of prejudiced superiority I have heard in some western medical practitioners when alternative therapies are mentioned, and I, like Howard, jumped to the defense. I may have read that into your language when you did not intend it at all, and if so I apologize.

 

Let's all shake hands and go about our business, eh?

 

Oh, and don't get burned!

 

Not getting burned is the way to go

Just leaves the cuts and bruises...

 

It may be the case that my expressions sound harder than I meant them due to the whole second language thing.

 

I would not call it superiority, though I do not accept most ob the "alternative stuff". It would be prejudiced if I did not read up what I am criticizing, which is not the case. Some "alternative" styles belong to the most thoroughly disproven theories in the scientific community.

I accept herbal medicine as it is the root of all pharmacology and contains real "chemistry". Everything beyond that, I can not accept unless somebody gives me some proof in the form of double blind, randomised, controlled studies. I have very bad experience with people advocating antiscientific therapies where I encountered the same superiority you mentioned even though no proof was given and everything was backed with "personal feeling" or "it is so because I say so".

 

And in some cases I know people who suffered or even died from following these people's advice and their "alternative medicine".

 

I did not calssify Mike as such a person, I wanted to express that by saying in my first post that I appreciated his intentions and his wanting to help.

[Matt Bower]

You might expect vinegar to be a mild irritant, but the anecdotal reports are that it relieves pain in minor burns. That doesn't mean it isn't also doing some kind of harm, but it seems unlikely -- it's very dilute, weak acid. And while it may not be completely sterile, it also isn't very hospitable to microbial life.

 

Personally, I'll skip the hot water.

[J.Arthur Loose]

Modern medicine fairly consistently dismisses "anecdotal" and "folk" cures to which it must sheepishly, if ever, finally admit exist within a firm basis of truth. The scientific method is really good at trees. It is really terrible at forests. And many of these cures and treatments work because of multiple or unexpected things, which science doesn't find because science is looking for the wrong, particular, one tree, or because it misses the complex symbiosis of the grove. Add to this the increasingly notable effect of the profit motive on medical practice or really now, science in general and I simply have to remain skeptical all around.

 

I do know that a second degree burn the size of my palm and on my thigh (ironically, not smithing-related but the result of a truly sad camping-espresso incident... it was my last bit of coffee!) has disappeared without so much as a mark, to which I attribute the large doses of high concentrate vitamin E oil I treated it with. This on the advice of a good friend in the extreme body-mod circle who pioneered a lot of modern approaches to decorative brandings, who noted the effects (negative, from a branding perspective,) of vitamin E oils on burns. Vitamin E oil also increases the healing of tattoos so much that it can cause loss of color. (After 50 tattoo sittings and counting, you're willing to try strange things for your tattoo artist. The hydrogen-peroxide tattoo eraser was really interesting...)

 

I've been burned, blistered, pierced and tattooed a great deal. I'm just not convinced the doctors are always right, in fact, I know that a lot of standard medical advice isn't, for a variety of experiential reasons. Not that's it's always wrong, either. Stitches are great. Anti-biotics too, once you actually have an infection.

 

I'm not going to try the vinegar, or the hot water. Sounds ouchy. But absent any experiential evidence, I'm certainly not going to dismiss it.

[Mike Sheffield]

Holy crap! I didn't mean to start all that with pickle juice! Well whatever anyone else says I'll continue to use pickle juice on my minor burns, if you don't want to for whatever reason cool with me. It works for me so I'll continue on with using it.

 

Hey Mike I'll have to try the vinegar on a sunburn trick I have a mild one right now.

[Greg H.]

With mild 1st degree burns / sunburns, I might be willing to try the vinegar / pickle juice trick if I didn't have any of my other preferences available to me.

 

With small 2nd degree burns w/ small blisters, I generally opt for taking ibuprofen and keeping the blister drained and protected - as I have found that draining the blister relieves the pressure that increases the long term pain, while keeping it drained quite frequently allows the covering skin to reattach long enough for a new layer of epidermis to develop underneath while keeping it moist, at which point the damaged skin will dry up and peel off like the skin on a sunburn does - only in a thicker layer.

 

For larger blisters ( over .5 inches sqr ), I opt for cooling and then to the ER ( and a dose of ibuprofen on the way ) as the larger blisters are more prone to break and the covering skin tearing away completely.

[Mike Blue]

In a professional academic world, the accuser bears the burden of proof. I did not accuse established medicine of failure and therefore bear no burden of proof to do so. You accused me of bad advice. Now you are trying to avoid the responsibility of proving that my advice is flawed. Where you began to fail was to accuse me personally, attempting to imply that I am not credible. That is the first sign of someone losing an argument, whatever the subject. You should attack or defend the argument, not the person.

 

None of the alternative treatments I have mentioned have been reported as harmful by the majority of people who advocate them. Your argument is based on a biased assumption that anything contrary to established doctrine is in error. A very few minutes of searching the internet produces "vinegar burn remedy" 1,750,000 hits. The "flour burn remedy" 7,333,000 hits. It appears there are a lot of people discussing both these topics. What harm comes from something that a patient believes will do them good? This is the entire basis for the validity of placebo therapy.

 

I will accommodate your demand for an argument of merit, at least in part because I was trained to argue against comfortable content, to be fair and responsible in a debate. It's no debate if there are not two sides.

 

Briefly, Substance P is involved in nociception, transmitting information about tissue damage from peripheral receptors to the central nervous system to be converted to the sensation of pain. Capsaicin, an agent producing a perception of heat, has been shown to reduce the levels of Substance P probably by reducing the number of C-fibre nerves or causing these nerves to be more tolerant. Capsaicin is clinically used as an analgesic and an inflammatory agent to reduce pain. I believe no one here could fail to agree that this is a heating sensation. Capsaicin is a common enough therapy, even purchased without a physician's prescription. It's also used as a police deterrent to control suspects.

 

Pain behaviors induced by mechanical, thermal and chemical stimulation of somatic and visceral tissues are reduced in tissue lacking SP. It has been proposed that the importance of SP in the pain response apply only to a certain 'window' of pain intensities and when the intensity of the pain stimuli is increased. Therefore, additional heating of tissue below the damage to tissue threshold will produce depletion of substance P and decrease pain behaviors. I propose this window to be early in the course of a burn.

 

Substance P has been known to stimulate cell growth in culture, and it was shown that Substance P could promote wound healing of non-healing ulcers in humans. As the heating stimulus is withdrawn the body will replace substance P, improving the healing response.

 

Substance P also has effects as a potent vasodilator. Substance P is involved in the axon reflex-mediated vasodilatation to local heating and wheal and flare reaction. Vasodilation occurs to allow heat loss from the body. Vasodilation also brings immune mediators and tissue repair factors into the area of injury and allows for damaged components to be flushed away from the injury.

 

Heat, mechanical, thermal or chemical, can produce an altered pain response via manipulation of substance P. It can produce improved wound healing and supportive tissue healing via vasodilation.

 

Those are but a few commonly accepted physiological facts about one possible mechanism that supports the use of heat as a treatment. Doctors use heat to treat multiple problems. In addition, one of the common early treatments for burns, where you find a lot of reference to using cold water to stop the burn also include using lukewarm water for the same purpose. Indeed, using cold water to shut down a fever is the wrong thing to do. Using tepid or lukewarm water is better because the skin vessels dilate radiating more heat away from the core areas. Using cold water is not always the right thing to do.

[Meisenmann]

In a professional academic world, the accuser bears the burden of proof. I did not accuse established medicine of failure and therefore bear no burden of proof to do so. You accused me of bad advice. Now you are trying to avoid the responsibility of proving that my advice is flawed. Where you began to fail was to accuse me personally, attempting to imply that I am not credible. That is the first sign of someone losing an argument, whatever the subject. You should attack or defend the argument, not the person.

 

I was not aware that I attacked you personally, nor was it intended, so if I made that impression I am sorry for that. As for your assumption that I have to disprove your theories, I am still of the contrary opinion because you suggested methods that are completely opposite to the established methods.

 

None of the alternative treatments I have mentioned have been reported as harmful by the majority of people who advocate them. Your argument is based on a biased assumption that anything contrary to established doctrine is in error. A very few minutes of searching the internet produces "vinegar burn remedy" 1,750,000 hits. The "flour burn remedy" 7,333,000 hits. It appears there are a lot of people discussing both these topics. What harm comes from something that a patient believes will do them good? This is the entire basis for the validity of placebo therapy.

 

Well, like I said, applying heat instead of cold will keep the temperature of the deeply burned tissue higher for a longer time, so more damage will ensue. That is harm in my book. I wouldn't say everything contrary to curent doctrine is wrong. But I will not consider swichting from doctrine to "new method" without very good reason and proof.

 

 

Those are but a few commonly accepted physiological facts about one possible mechanism that supports the use of heat as a treatment. Doctors use heat to treat multiple problems. In addition, one of the common early treatments for burns, where you find a lot of reference to using cold water to stop the burn also include using lukewarm water for the same purpose. Indeed, using cold water to shut down a fever is the wrong thing to do. Using tepid or lukewarm water is better because the skin vessels dilate radiating more heat away from the core areas. Using cold water is not always the right thing to do.

 

What you wrote about substance P is absolutely right. But in my opinion you are mixing up different topics here.

 

Fever is an alltogether different thing than acute treatment of a burn. What irks me in modern medicine is that one is way too fast with the decision to manipulate a patients body temperature when the fever clearly has its benefits for the body's fight against an infection. One should only think about this when a patients fever rises to a level where it becomes dangerous instead of helpful. When talking about constriction of your vessels: this is the reason why I would try to evade ice or ice water. I talk about the temperature it comes out of the tap here. Maybe we have a misunderstanding about what the other one advocates? My reasoning is that the water needs to have enough "capacity" to take up temperature from your burned skin and therefore should not be hot. Optimal would be running water to quicken the process of siphoning away the excess heat.

 

I know of methods where you apply heat via elektrodes to cancerous tissues. Warmth will also help with many painful injuries of your musculoskeletal system. The use of capsaicin is not very common where I live. It is mostly used as an "add on" when people react positively to the warmth in analgetic therapy.

 

But a burn, where you sustained damage because of too much heat is nothing you should treat with more heat as first aid because of the aforementioned reasons.

 

If you are really sure about your method of treating burns with heat, you should publicate something about it. I will stick to the proven method until there are good reasons to change.

[Mike Blue]

I was not aware that I attacked you personally, nor was it intended, so if I made that impression I am sorry for that. As for your assumption that I have to disprove your theories, I am still of the contrary opinion because you suggested methods that are completely opposite to the established methods.

 

No apology needed if it was unintentional. Passion about what you believe is acceptable but it can lead things astray. Using my name and the recommendation to avoid my advice, does imply that I, as a person, am not reliable or my advice valid. And, all we have here is the written word, which takes away any kinesthetic bandwidth for communication. I was simply listing common folk remedies. They are entertaining, possibly effective if folk keep using them. It's not for medical people to immediately discount what the patient says. We are not gods, nor all knowing. Confidence can be construed as arrogance.

 

Well, like I said, applying heat instead of cold will keep the temperature of the deeply burned tissue higher for a longer time, so more damage will ensue. That is harm in my book. I wouldn't say everything contrary to curent doctrine is wrong. But I will not consider swichting from doctrine to "new method" without very good reason and proof.

 

Cooling is a reflex for most people. But if you observe carefully, there is a moment when you could be applying cold to the outside of the burn and the burn wave in the tissue could still be proceeding deeper. There is always a heat delay in transmission through many materials and tissue is no exception. For as many sources that advocate cool or cold water, there are just as many that advocate lukewarm water. Proof is nice to have, but I have found that concept to be as relative and mutable as many other things deepending on the patient's beliefs and the time and place.

 

At your point in your career, just getting "the rules" down may be something you have to do. Some folks are more or less comfortable operating within a structured system. Others are more comfortable allowing things to flow around them and not fighting all the time to keep the loose things in a box.

 

As you gain more experience, or you find yourself working in a different place, you may find yourself doing and thinking differently. I could tell you about a time in 1980 when I was fortunate to work with two surgical teams and an infectious disease group from the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz, among an additional 340 selfless and dedicated human beings. They were exceptional providers in a place where nothing went as the textbooks suggested. But it's a long story and I'll spare everyone.

 

As in making knives, your favorite handle glue, the way you heat treat a steel, there are always alternatives. The methods I use are what works in my shop with the tools I have available. It does not mean that I am not familiar with how others get the job done. Indeed, the more I learn about others methods, the better I get.

 

It is the same in medicine. If I cannot treat someone effectively, I refer them to someone I know who can. If a patient tells me that they prefer treatment A over B, I educate them to all the possibilities and help them choose. That may include sending them to someone who has proof their treatment works, but the patient can still choose "the wrong" way. Sometimes we have to accept that and still give them all the care we can, that they allow. We also must acknowledge that sometimes our treatment are not helpful.

 

This is only an observation on my part. I have found that it's much better to study human behavior and use it for a guide to practice, than to try to hold all the knowledge of medicine in my head. Books will say the same thing every time you look at them. People change and missing the small differences can be critical.

[Meisenmann]

No apology needed if it was unintentional. Passion about what you believe is acceptable but it can lead things astray. Using my name and the recommendation to avoid my advice, does imply that I, as a person, am not reliable or my advice valid. And, all we have here is the written word, which takes away any kinesthetic bandwidth for communication. I was simply listing common folk remedies. They are entertaining, possibly effective if folk keep using them. It's not for medical people to immediately discount what the patient says. We are not gods, nor all knowing. Confidence can be construed as arrogance.

 

That wasn't the intention of using your name. I just wanted to make the connection and didn't think of the fact I could easily have used the quote function. I did not take them as curiosity-items but remembered something like "also proven method". Listening to patients is great, but I think you also have to speak your mind when their plans could get them or other people hurt.

 

 

Cooling is a reflex for most people. But if you observe carefully, there is a moment when you could be applying cold to the outside of the burn and the burn wave in the tissue could still be proceeding deeper. There is always a heat delay in transmission through many materials and tissue is no exception.

 

That is the whole problem. But this is the reason why you are using the cold. Normalising temperatures as fast as possible.

 

 

For as many sources that advocate cool or cold water, there are just as many that advocate lukewarm water. Proof is nice to have, but I have found that concept to be as relative and mutable as many other things deepending on the patient's beliefs and the time and place.

At your point in your career, just getting "the rules" down may be something you have to do. Some folks are more or less comfortable operating within a structured system. Others are more comfortable allowing things to flow around them and not fighting all the time to keep the loose things in a box.

 

Well. Whens some friend of mine burns himself badly when BBQ went wrong, I do not find the concept of treating himn mutable or relative...maybe with really minor things that wil heal by themself in a day wqhere I could also do nothing at all. But even then I have seen that cooling as much as possible for longer times helped me with the pain and limited the damage. In this case I simply see the logic in the rules and no logic whatsoever in adverse methods, therefore I will follow them. Not getting sued is a nice bonus though , not following the guidelines can get me sued here rather quickly.

 

I have found that it's much better to study human behavior and use it for a guide to practice, than to try to hold all the knowledge of medicine in my head. Books will say the same thing every time you look at them. People change and missing the small differences can be critical.

 

Okay, I see the whole topic more in a first-aid acute treatment way than in a "how I connect to patients and treat over a longer time" way. I think there are patients you yourself (I myself) can not connect with if the views are too different. In that situation it is better to part and maybe send the person a collegue who is more fitting for him (of course I do not mean emergencies or anything like that). When choosing the correct antiobiotic, finding the correct diagnosis for a person with neurological symptoms (save psychological symptoms) or calculating optimum therapy for a special cancerous disease, people's behaviour will not get me anywhere. It is all statistics, therapeutic concepts and "book knowledge" from then on...

 

If a patient tells me that they prefer treatment A over B, I educate them to all the possibilities and help them choose. That may include sending them to someone who has proof their treatment works, but the patient can still choose "the wrong" way. Sometimes we have to accept that and still give them all the care we can, that they allow. We also must acknowledge that sometimes our treatment are not helpful.

 

I concur completely with this. Even though I would try my best convincing a patient to choose the way of treatment I think best, everybody has to decide himself what he does with his life and health. But for my own conscience it is imperative for me that I try to give all the information I have anyway. Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied (what roughly translates to "everybody is the smith of his own luck/fortune")

[cdent]

....the reason why you are using the cold. Normalising temperatures as fast as possible....I have seen that cooling as much as possible for longer times helped me with the pain and limited the damage....

 

There seems to be a concern that whatever heat source that causes a burn can persist. I can imagine damage radiating, but it would seem the temperature of the injured area would decrease quickly with or without help. For a typical shop burn, I'd guess the temperature of the injured area would be at or around body temperature with in seconds, either on its own or with the help of cooling.

 

My feeling is that prolonged cooling would be more for pain control, but is there a 'rule of thumb' that would predict how much cold and how long to apply it would actually decrease the amount of injury.

 

Really just wondering. For little stuff, I figure just 'suck it up', but maybe it's worth taking some time for extended cooling, or application of warmth.

 

Take care, Craig

[Greg H.]

There seems to be a concern that whatever heat source that causes a burn can persist. I can imagine damage radiating, but it would seem the temperature of the injured area would decrease quickly with or without help. For a typical shop burn, I'd guess the temperature of the injured area would be at or around body temperature with in seconds, either on its own or with the help of cooling.

 

My feeling is that prolonged cooling would be more for pain control, but is there a 'rule of thumb' that would predict how much cold and how long to apply it would actually decrease the amount of injury.

 

Really just wondering. For little stuff, I figure just 'suck it up', but maybe it's worth taking some time for extended cooling, or application of warmth.

 

Take care, Craig

 

 

Ever noticed how a piece of meat continues to cook for several minutes after it is pulled off of the grill?

 

It something that is fairly well known in cooking circles - the internal temperature of cooked ( cooking? ) meat can continue to rise for upwards of 5-10 minutes after it has been removed from the heat and as bad as it sounds, human flesh is just another form of meat that is in the process of cooking when you get burnt.

 

Then there is the effect of the body reacting to tissue damage, by dilating the blood vessels in the area of the injury - and they can stay dilated for several hours, thus flooding the injury with the warm / hot blood from the core of the body. This is why sunburns can feel warm ( even hot ) even a hour or two after the damage has occurred, and why someone who has arthritis can feel warmer than normal at the point where the arthritis occurs.

 

 

Simply put, the faster you can control the surface and deep heat and to an extent the longer you control it, the less actual short term damage and long term pain that generally occures