Our whole life is a daily encounter with dangers, all kinds of risks and problems. Pretending to be a wise minnow and hiding from the worries of the outside world in a cozy home is not a solution. Many unforeseen situations can happen to us within the walls of our own apartment: at any moment you can accidentally touch a hot iron, spill a cup of coffee on yourself, or burn your hand with steam over a boiling kettle. What to do if you are burned by boiling water? How to provide first aid to a victim in case of injury chemicals? In which cases you need to immediately go to the hospital, and in which burns you can get by with improvised means - we will find out in this article.
A burn occurs as a result of exposure to high temperatures and immediately turns into open wound, accessible to any microbes. Therefore, the first and most important thing to do is to free the damaged area from clothing and immediately cool the burned area. Ice from the refrigerator, snow, very cold water or any frozen product will do. Thanks to the cold, the pain subsides for a while, as unwanted inflammatory processes on affected tissues. After providing first aid, you must carefully examine the burn and assess the location of the skin lesion - further actions depend on the degree of the burn.
There are 4 degrees of burn, here they are:
In case of a first degree burn, treatment can be easily done at home. As soon as the first urgent Care was provided, the cooled surface of the skin should be lubricated with a medicine that will prevent the burn from spreading into the deep layers of the skin, relieve swelling and pain. These are drugs such as:
In addition to medicines for lung treatment For first-degree burns, homemade compresses are also suitable:
This stage is already considered a fairly serious injury, so assistance is provided first in a trauma center, and then at home. The doctor carefully treats the wound, performing the following algorithm:
The first rule for third and fourth degree burns is no self-medication! Severe burns must be accompanied by special treatment in the hospital. There the doctor first carries out anti-shock therapy, surgical treatment(if it is necessary to remove dead tissue and perform a skin graft operation), and then treatment in a hospital.
What to do for burns from boiling water
What to do for steam burns
What to do for oil burns
What to do for chemical burns
A burn is acute injury skin and underlying tissues. There are different types of burns: thermal, electrical, chemical, radiation. The most common burn at home is boiling water. The severity of tissue damage from a boiling water burn depends on its location.
The easiest way to burn your hand with boiling water is to accidentally spill freshly boiled water. It is more difficult to get burned on the face, neck, inner shoulder and thighs, but in these areas the damage will be deeper even with short-term exposure to hot water.
Burns on the leg (especially in the foot area) and on the back are less likely to be deep and heal faster. A facial burn is life-threatening, since such injuries are often combined with damage to the eyes, mouth, and respiratory tract.
How do you know how deep a burn is as a result of exposure to boiling water, when do you need to see a doctor, and in what cases can you handle it yourself? To do this, you need to determine the degree of burn and the area affected.
| 1st degree burn | Only the superficial epithelium of the skin is affected; redness, slight swelling of the affected area, and pain are visible. Goes away on its own within a few days |
| 2nd degree burn | The superficial epithelium and the deeper part of the skin are affected (partially). Initially, redness and swelling are observed, then blisters with a thin wall form. The affected area is painful, heals on its own within 10-12 days, if infection does not occur, scars do not form |
| 3rd degree burn | All skin and underlying tissues are affected
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| 4th degree burn | Occurs with prolonged exposure to boiling water on skin with a thin subcutaneous fat layer. A black scab and charring are observed. |
For 1st degree burns and not large area lesions (grade 1 - less than half of the palm) consult a doctor as soon as possible mandatory not required, only optional. If a 2nd degree burn occurs, especially if it becomes infected and inflammation increases, you should consult a doctor immediately. 3rd and 4th degree burns require immediate medical attention.
A large area and depth of damage can be life-threatening. The criterion is the appearance of a total burn of 1-2-3a degrees, occupying more than 30% of the body area. Burns of 3b and 4 degrees are dangerous even if more than 10% of the surface is affected.
You can use one of the methods: the simplest of them are the Wallace method (“rule of nines”) and the Glumov method (“rule of the palm”).
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Further treatment of the burn with boiling water continues independently or in a hospital (depending on the severity).
Treatment of the burn surface with medicated bandages is called closed treatment. This is the method that will be useful for independent actions.
For a 1st degree burn, a medicated bandage is used. The best ointment for burns - this is Bepanten. It is enough to apply it once and apply a bandage for 4-5 days. There is no need to change the bandage during this time; the skin will have time to heal.
For a 2nd degree burn, treatment is carried out first by a doctor and then independently. The doctor will clean the burn surface and tell you how to treat the affected skin. Toilet of the burn surface without hospitalization is carried out when a small area is affected and without signs of shock. The procedure includes the following steps:
At home, the bandage is changed once every 2-3 days until the skin heals.
Treatment of 3-4 degree burns is carried out only in a hospital. Upon admission, antishock therapy is administered. Burns are carried out in an open or closed way. Public method It is needed mainly for burns of the face, neck and perineum. 3-4 times a day, lubricate the affected skin with an antiseptic ointment or Vaseline.
All efforts are directed towards the rapid rejection of dead tissue, the formation of a dry scab, the prevention of purulent-inflammatory processes, and the removal of toxic substances from the body. In addition, for burns of 3b and 4 degrees, surgical treatment is carried out, including excision of the area of necrosis, closure of the defect and skin grafting.
Expensive ones are not suitable for everyone medical supplies. In such cases, a good folk remedy from burns with boiling water.
Traditional methods of treatment are suitable only for first-degree burns, since self-medication of second-degree burns is fraught with complications that will lead to an unsightly scar.
The softest and most effective products, especially if a child is burned by boiling water: pumpkin pulp, raw grated potatoes, aloe, honey, cabbage, raw egg white. How to use:
Products that require longer preparation:
What else can you anoint a burn if medicinal ointments not at hand? Self-prepared ointment, which sometimes works more effectively than pharmacy ointment.
Attention! Comfrey itself is poisonous, so you should not take it orally without medical supervision.
If boiling water affects a person for a long time and damages large area skin, may develop dangerous complication– burn disease. This is how the body reacts to the traumatic effects of high temperature. Burn disease has 4 stages:
Currently, minor burns are treated by general surgeons and traumatologists, but severe burns are treated in special burn centers.
Everyone knows that a reasonable visit to the sauna is not harmful to health and even has a positive effect on the cardiovascular and immune system. However, advertising and fashion for relaxing in a sauna, combined with alcohol abuse, sometimes leads to tragic consequences. Many sauna lovers lose common sense and caution when visiting it (see).
In Finland, for example, several deaths are recorded every year from overheating in a sauna or the consequences of burns. These are mostly men suffering from alcoholism. Spending 30-60 minutes in a sauna while intoxicated can result in deep burns and fatal outcome. Usually, when men come to the sauna with friends or wives, they stay in it longer, and if they are left alone, they may lose consciousness and in this case they are subjected to long-term exposure hot dry air. In this case, damage to all layers of the skin occurs, and deep defeat fabrics.
What happens during alcohol intoxication + hot dry air:
Dehydration, intense sweating, thrombocytosis, decreased blood pressure, poor circulation and body immobility contribute to the development of burns over short time. And alcohol increases both dehydration and falling blood pressure, and arrhythmias, it disrupts skin circulation and causes overheating of the skin, especially its upper layers.
When a patient is admitted to the hospital with burns from the hot air of a sauna, the severity of his condition may be underestimated, since outwardly it looks like mild erythema. Surgeons (without experience working with such injuries) may underestimate the degree of danger of a burn to the patient’s life.
Even with a relatively small area of damage, this condition causes disability and high mortality due to a combination of damage to the underlying tissues and deep necrosis. Be careful and do not drink alcohol during sauna treatments!
Most burns occur at home, in everyday conditions. Every person knows that when handling hot liquids you need to be as careful as possible, however, sometimes injuries occur, so it is important to know how to behave in such a situation and what to do if you are burned by hot water, boiling water or steam.
First of all, you need to eliminate the effect of hot water on the skin, i.e. Remove clothing, then cool the affected area under cold running water for a few minutes (5 to 20 minutes, depending on the severity of the burn), which will reduce the pain of the burned area. You can also use ice packs or cold air. With strong pain You can take (inject) a painkiller. To prevent infection, cover the wound with a sterile bandage.
Treatment of a burn depends on the degree of damage; opening the blisters on your own is prohibited.
Lubricating the burned area with blisters with alcohol-containing products, iodine, manganese, vegetable oil, and fat-based preparations is contraindicated.
If you don’t have special remedies for burns at hand, you can use traditional medicine methods.
You can wash the wound with chilled tea leaves (green or black), and you can also apply a bandage soaked in tea to the affected area.
Most effective means considered from burns sea buckthorn oil or propolis ointment.
Sea buckthorn oil has long been used as a tissue repair and scar preventing agent. If you use sea buckthorn oil right away, the healing process will go faster.
Burns are often caused by careless handling of hot liquids. Most burns from hot water occur in children, so parents should know what to do in the event of a burn.
If a child accidentally spills boiling water on himself, you need to remove his wet clothes as quickly as possible.
The burned part of the body must be cooled (under running cold water, cold air, etc.). It is important to know that you should not cool burned skin. ice water or ice, because due to sharp drop temperature, complications and shock may occur.
After this, you need to treat the affected area with any anti-burn drug, which should always be in home medicine cabinet. The most effective for burns are Panthenol and Levomikol, which relieve pain well, relieve inflammation, swelling, and restore damaged tissue.
If there is a first degree burn, slight redness is observed, the affected area is small, then it is allowed self-treatment. If blisters appear after a burn, the skin is very red or swollen, you should seek medical attention. medical care. If a child feels unwell after a burn, has a fever, etc. You should immediately visit a doctor (or call an ambulance), regardless of the degree of the burn.
Many people don’t know what to do in case of a steam burn. Such burns are classified as thermal, but damage from steam burns is several times stronger than from open fire.
As with any other thermal burn, the integrity of the skin, the top layer of skin partially dies, blood circulation is disrupted, inflammation and swelling appear.
Steam burns should be dealt with in the same way as other types. thermal burns, first of all, you need to remove the victim from the source of steam, and if necessary, remove clothes (you need to remove them as quickly as possible, you can use scissors or a knife). Next, the burn site needs to be cooled with water, which will help prevent burns in the deeper layers of the skin. You can give the victim painkillers to drink (analgin, pentalgin, etc.). After treating the wound special means(Panthenol), you need to apply a clean bandage and seek medical help.
Great care should be taken with third- and fourth-degree steam burns; in this case, you should immediately call an ambulance or take the victim to the hospital, since self-treatment can lead to serious complications.
