How Should You Treat Burns at Home?

Burns come with severe pain no matter how little they appear to be. It has been recorded to be the second-highest painful thing on earth after the pain of childbirth. Burns are common within the household. It is a situation whereby your skin is exposed to extreme heat, whether liquid, solid, or gas, that causes the skin cells to die, thereby plunging you into severe pain.

Waiting to get to the hospital when a burn incident occurs at home can be quite painful and unbearable to the victim, hence the need for you to read this article to understand and know what you need to do at home as first aid for burns before going to the hospital [if necessary]. However, severe burns require medical attention to avoid complications or death.

In this article, you will learn the degree of burns that exist, the mode of treatment for each of them, you will also know which degree of burns require a doctor’s attention and which of them you can handle by yourself at home with natural products. This article also contains the processes and natural treatments you can adopt to clear those ugly scars you got from burns in the past.

Most people are lucky enough to recover from burns, while others are not, hence the need to prevent burns both at home and at work [for those who work with electricity and chemicals]. Burns can render your once supple, succulent, soft, and beautiful skin ugly, hard, coarse, and annoying to look at.

Burns could result from hot foods from the kitchen, hot water, gas cooker, hot iron, exposure to the scorching sun, sparks from electrical appliances at home, or effects of harsh chemicals on the skin.

Levels of Burns

Knowing the degree or types of burns that exist will help you determine the treatment approach you need for a particular injury. The levels of burns that exist include;

• First-degree burn
• Second-degree burn
• Third-degree burn
• Fourth-degree burn

The degree of each burn depends on the level of damage from the heat to the skin.

First-degree Burn

This kind of burn does not affect the inner layer of your skin, it only affects the outermost layer of your skin. However, whether innermost and surface layer, the pain associated with burns can make you lose every semblance of sanity and order, as you will scuttle through every nook and cranny to get help for yourself and get rid of the agonizing pain.

The signs of this kind of burn include; redness, minor swelling, and peeling while healing.

Second-degree Burn

A second-degree burn is more severe than the first-degree burn. Here, the damage goes beyond the skin’s outermost layer and scars more cells while eating more profound into the skin. The burns here can make the skin extraordinarily sore and cause blisters to be exposed to irritation and infection.

Third-degree burn

Third-degree burns are extremely severe and require urgent medical attention. It causes more damage than the first two types of burns. It eats deep down into every layer of the skin tissues. The pain of a third-degree burn is unimaginable and leaves the victim in a pitiable condition. According to medical records, most cases of a third-degree burn might not be painful due to nerve damage. When the nerve that interprets pain signals to the brain is damaged, the function becomes altered, and it passes wrong information or no information at all to the brain.

How Do You Identify a Third-degree Burn?

When you see white or blackened char on the skin that might cause numbness and inability to feel anything with that part of the skin, you have rightly discovered a third-degree burn.

Causes of Burns

Burns can come as a result of;

• Fire
• Electric malfunctions
• Chemicals like acid
• Hot metals
• Kitchen accidents
• Vehicle accidents
• Sunlight or any other form of ultraviolet radiation

The symptoms of burns, as discussed above, include; pain [which is the dominant characteristic of burns], blisters, white or blackened charred skin, peeling skin, red skin, and swelling. Identifying the symptoms of the burn will give you a good head start on how to treat the burns.

Treatment of Burns

Giving first aid or treating injuries sustained from burns can be very relieving as you would not get to suffer extreme pain for so long. You will be subjecting yourself to unnecessary anxiety for so long if you do not know how to treat your burn wounds at home before seeing medical personnel [if necessary].

When to See a Doctor

Not all burn injuries can be treated at home. You can go ahead with treating first degree burns in your house using home remedies or natural products from your garden or kitchen but note carefully that you should treat third and fourth-degree burns at home under no circumstance. These degrees of burns are way beyond what you can handle at home. If you can identify third or fourth-degree burns with the descriptions given above in this article, you should immediately call for medical attention.

Note! DO NOT TREAT THIRD AND FOURTH DEGREE BURNS AT HOME! This is when you should see a doctor.

Also, see a doctor when your home burn treatment looks like it is getting complications due to exposure and introduction to infections.

Home Remedy for Burns

Dos;

• To treat first and second-degree burns at home, do the following;
• Soak the skin in cool water for a while to reduce the sharp pain.
• You can also place a wet cloth on the surface of the wound immediately after the incident. This would help reduce the pain.
• Take any pain relief drugs that come handy.
• Apply antibiotic ointments to the surface of the wound to fight infection.
• Aloe Vera: Smear Aloe Vera paste on the surface of the wound. Aloe Vera is anti-inflammatory and helps to ward off infections. It has been proven over the years to be effective in treating first and second-degree burn injuries.
• Honey: Honey is also an excellent remedy for burns. It is anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial. It is effective at healing burn wounds.
• Salt; For your minor burn wounds, adding salt might be quite painful, but it has been proven effective in preventing blisters from developing from your burn injuries.
• Ginger: Ginger, with its many medicinal values, has proven to be more effective in burn injury healing than Aloe Vera. All you just need to do is, grind the ginger into a paste and smear the paste on the wound. Though it might be painful at first, the result will amaze you.
• Potato peel; It contains anti-bacterial that helps heal wounds fast.

Don’ts;

• Do not use cotton wool on the injury’s surface, using cotton wool would cause irritation and introduce the infection to the wound.
• Try to stay away from the ice as ice can cause more damage to the wound.
• Do not use butter or eggs as they have not been proven to be useful for treating burns. In fact, butter retains heat, and your burn wound does not require any form of heat. Besides, butter can contain bacteria that can worsen your injuries.
• Do not expose your burn wounds to direct sunlight, as this can worsen it.
• Do not be tempted to burst your blisters. Bursting them can introduce infection into your wound.
• Undoubtedly, coconut oil heals many things, but stay away from it when you have a burn injury. Your burn injury does not need any form of oil to improve. Oils might even cause irritation.
• Avoid the superstition that says toothpaste can heal your burn wounds. Toothpaste will only irritate the wound and expose it to more infection.

Natural Ways To Clear Old Burn Scars

If you become a victim of any kind of burn by chance, and your skin has been damaged, it is with great joy that I am announcing to you that your skin is not damaged beyond repair. Some natural remedies have been discovered to get rid of old burn scars. All you need is consistency. With the natural remedies coupled with consistency, your skin would return to normal.

• Lemon and tomato juice

• Dampen the scar with cold water for a few minutes.

Dab the scar with the lemon juice first, and then apply it later. Repeat this two times a day to clear the scar.

• Almond oil

Massage the scar with almond oil. Repeat this twice a day and watch the scar disappear

• Fenugreek seeds

Grind the seeds into a paste, apply the paste on your scar, allow it to sit and dry on the scar, then wash it off with cold water. Repeat the procedure twice a day.

• Vitamin E

Open up vitamin E capsule and apply its content on the scar, leave it to dry, and rinse off after one hour.

• Honey

Rub honey on your scar before you go to bed, bandage it leave it on for the whole night, then wash it off with warm water in the morning.

• Coconut Oil

Apply coconut oil on the scar and allow it to sink into your skin for about one hour. Do this three to four times daily.

• Apple Cider Vinegar

Dab your scar with two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mixed with four tablespoons of distilled water. Leave it to dry. Do it every night before bed.

Finally,

Prevention they say is quite better than cure. It is better to avoid everything that can cause burn incidents because treating it can be very painful, and the accidents are capable of leaving you with ugly scars. However, life happens. If, unfortunately, you get involved in a burn accident, there are first aid treatments that can be given at home to mild injuries [first and second-degree burns]. There are also home remedies that can help you get rid of those ugly looking scars the burn has left you. All you need is convenience. The severity of the burn would determine what treatment to give. Note, extremely severe burns [third and fourth degree] can lead to complications and death if treated at home. These dangerous kinds of burns are emergencies that require serious medical attention and monitoring.