by I burned my hand on a pot. It was a little worse than the usual burn, so I googled how to treat it. All the sites I went to said if it was a burn on the hand see a doctor, especially if there was a blister, and it looked like one was starting to form. I went to a walk-in clinic and they said no blister, it’s a first degree burn. Great! But I woke up this morning and now it’s definitely blistered.
I’m not sure what to do. It’s small. An inch long and a half an inch wide. It’s dry. Also, it doesn’t hurt. Ugh. Plus, I have a dentist appointment in a couple of hours, for something that is probably going to be no fun at all (possible root canal).
One last Halloween shot, because I like the cat and the skeleton mice.
Don’t deliberately pop the blister. It will leak on its own, once the skin breaks down a little. Put a bandaid over it to protect it but make sure it is loose to allow air flow. You may need to use a couple of bandaids at 90 degrees to the burn line, like little bridges. Keep it clean. Once the blister leaks, again just protect it and keep it clean and dry. Eventually, the skin will start to slough off on its own. Don’t clip off the dead skin before it is really ready to peel off on its own. This will take a few days or more.
Let the body heal itself. I had a spot about an inch square on my face ‘burned’ off with liquid nitrogen. There was a big blister and all the things I described above took place. Eventually, after the dead skin that had been on top of the blister peeled away, I was left with a bright pink mark of brand new skin. Now, there is no sign of the original burn (or the mark I had burned off.) The skin can heal itself wonderfully. And don’t put polysporin or salve on it. If you keep it clean, it will be fine!
Thank you so much for all thatQ Unfortunately, I broke the blister accidentally on my way home from the dentist. AND, I put antibiotic ointment on it. Only because the bandage I had on it stuck to the skin and pulled some off when I changed it. One site said to do this to prevent that happening again.
But I can see it’s healing already, and I won’t put any more ointment on it, because I think it might be done with the … oozing stage. (Gross, I know.)
One thing I learned while I was riding horses is that you keep a wet wound dry and a dry wound moist. So, as long as the blister is damp, keep it dry. When it gets dry from healing, then you can put ointment on it (if you want to, although by then, it should not need ointment.) Keep the bandaids loose enough for airflow and they shouldn’t stick to the wound. If they do stick, you can soak the hand in a little warm water for a few minutes and the bandage should loosen up. My husband recently cut the end right off his thumb so I have some experience with nasty wet wounds and keeping the bandage from sticking! For him, I used a fairly rigid teflon pad (the emergency room nurse gave me some) to tent over the wound to keep anything from touching it, once it had stopped bleeding (it took some hours for the clotting to kick in.)
I just realized I totally didn’t get what you mean about making a tent but that would totally be the way to go in these situations! Thank you so much for taking the time to write out all this advice and explanations.
I’m sorry about your husband, ACK ACK ACK. I hope he’s much better already.
My wound, which looked so gross this morning, looks really good all of a sudden. It’s so weird! It looks like days worth of healing in few hours, essentially. How can that be?? It must have been the mildest of 2nd degree burns possible.
You’re welcome. 🙂 I’m one of those ‘good in a crisis’ sort of people. If you look me up on Facebook, I think I am public enough that you can see stuff on my time line, and if so, I posted a photo of his thumb on August 22, 2015, “how we spent our Saturday morning.” It has totally healed of course, but the thumb is flat and there is no ‘stuffing’ where he cut the tip off. He also has no feeling there, although that may improve as time goes by too.
I am glad your burn is healing well! Don’t be surprised if it gets goopy again for a while. The flesh may just be weeping. But if it gets red, or hot, or smelly, get thee to a doctor!
I just found you, and just saw your friend request! I don’t know how I missed it. OH GOOD LORD!! That photo.
It is a little red around the burn and it wasn’t yesterday. But it looks so good otherwise. It’s completely dry, for instance.