Aluminum Foil Works for Burns!

OH. MY. GOODNESS! I burned my left hand yesterday (2 fingers and part of the hand) on my searing pan right after I took it out of the oven, while broiling some turkey for Thanksgiving. It was nasty. Bad. Painful. This happened at around 6pm, and I went straight for the "running water and egg whites" trick, cause it always worked for me - and I'm the Queen of the kitchen burn! :/

It wasn't enough though, so as always, I wrapped some ice in a hand towel, and wrapped that around my fingers. Las time I seriously burned myself in the oven, having my arm wrapped in ice for 2 hours helped immensely... But not this time. I spent the last SEVEN and a half HOURS with my hand in a plastic bag with water and a couple ice cubes to keep it cool, and as soon as I took my hand out of the bag, I'd cry in pain. Cry, as in an "I can't freaking stand it" kind of pain. I had read this tip here hours earlier, but I have to admit I didn't have the courage to drop the ice bag. I kept thinking I didn't want to wait 20, 30 minutes in severe pain like some said here, and told my husband the ice bag was doing better. Of course, I didn't think would take me over 7 hours to get anywhere. And then I said "what the heck, it's been too long anyways". So, at precisely 1:17am today, I wrapped my fingers loosely in a gauze thing after applying a thin layer of antibiotic ointment with pain relief (just in case the huge blisters would burst), and gave the foil stuff a try. It hurt SO bad in the beginning! I kept a cold water bag under my hand just to help ease the burning a bit, and in exactly 30 minutes, I realized it was barely hurting anymore. Now it's 2:30am and I am shocked - and happy! - to announce that the pain is GONE. Plooft! Over! What - did I burn myself?

And I did NOT want to try it - so if anyone is reading this for the first time, please don't wait 7 hours like I did. This stuff is magical. I was about to leave for the ER after trying everything you can think of. But this is awesome! THANKS A LOT!!!

Thanks to all of you who have posted on this topic!

Last night, I pulled a Turkey out of the oven and inadvertently grabbed the hot handle of the pan as I was preparing to put it back in. It sounded like I had branded myself, sizzling sounds and all. When I pulled my hand away, I could see the skin around my palm beginning to contract and what looked to be some pretty fierce blisters beginning to form.

I put my hand under cold water for a few minutes and applied burn cream afterward, but my hand felt as though I had injected a hefty dose of cayenne into my palm. I've had great luck on this site before, so I hopped on to my laptop to see if there any alternatives to what I had already done. I ran across the 64 yeas for aluminum foil and hesitantly decided to give it a go.

When I first put wrapped the foil around my thumb and palm, it amped up the pain pretty substantially. Others had written about this though, so I stuck it out. Gradually, the pain started to lessen until after around 45 minutes I was able to take the foil off for two to three minutes before a lesser degree of pain began to return. I kept it on for the next two hours and when I took it off again, I was able to leave the foil off for the rest of the night with a very moderate degree of pain, and no blistering whatsoever.

Just before I went to bed, I soaked my hand in egg-whites and let them dry on the skin. When I woke up this morning, my hand was in really great shape. There are no blisters at all, and I can fully squeeze and extend my hand. All in all, it looks as though I burned my hand about a week ago as opposed to last night.

Amazing.

It really works. I had excruciating pain from a burn on the palm of my hand. After 5 hours of trying toothpaste, ice, mustard, sour cream - aluminum foil is the only thing that worked. I have no pain!

So I tried everything like mustard, honey, cold water, cold mil, cool water, tea bags, butter I got all that from the internet so I kept searching cause it wouldn't stop stinging and I ran into this and WOW it really does work although it really does burn for like 10-15 min maybe a little longer but then the pain eases up. Wow this is amazing!!! I will definitely be recommending this to family and friends.

So, I had burnt my thumb on an oven rack at about 6 o'clock today. It's now ten, and I was burning since then. I have been reading this site, and thought this aluminum foil thing was a hoax. I just put it on my finger, and it took about 30 seconds to start working. Whoever came up with this idea, I give you props and I love you. (:

Tried to move a logsplitter we'd been running and put my hand full on the (very hot) muffler - nasty 2nd degree burn to my whole palm and thumb. I had ice on the burn for about 3 hours and as long as the ice was on, it was tolerable. I only tried the aluminum foil idea because so many people had yea'd it.

It took about 24 minutes to calm the pain but it worked. I found the aluminum had to be in direct contact with the burn, not just wrapped around my hand. Here I am, typing with both hands. Unbelievable.

I burned my hand in a bad way. Tried everything, running water, aloe vera, egg whites. Lastly, I put the foil and it worked, the pain desolved. Amazing, thank you so much.

I'm stunned. I am actually recovering from surgery so the last thing I needed in the world was a nasty steam burn on my thumb. I'm exhausted from the pain of the surgery as is, and just sat down and cried when I realized I had burned myself. I was opening up a frozen meal and am usually so careful about doing this quickly and getting my fingers out of there fast, but this one got by me (horrible timing). It was stuck a bit, and I wasn't able to pull away fast enough. The steam was mindnumbing and only hit my tender skin for maybe a second or so, and yet it was excruciating. The only peace I had was running it under cold water (you can only do this for so long).

I tried my trusted Aloe Vera Gel and it would not calm things down. I tried baking Soda and water and still no relief. I had this calming gel for surgery that is made by Avene, and that didn't even work. I was getting panicked because I had a long night ahead of me and it was hard to sleep as it is with the pain I am enduring from my surgery. I googled and found this site and read as much as I could before having to run my thumb under water every 5 minutes or so.

I thought you guys were literally insane when I read about using aluminum foil. It even sounds scary to be honest. I am sure there is some scientific explanation somewhere, but it actually worked! I still cannot believe it! I became so desperate that I tore off a piece of foil and wrapped it around my throbbing thumb and waited. The pain was crazy for about 10 minutes, and then I began to realize I was actually watching television and no longer focused on the burn! After an hour, the pain was actually gone!!!!!!

Wow!!

I don't even care how it works at this point. I'm soooo grateful to you guys! Thank you!!!

Making candy apples for Halloween I did not resist the temptation to taste quick enough. I burned my finger to the point that it instantly blistered and went white. Just like most people I soaked it in cold water for 30min and realized I was not going to be able to do this all night so I checked for remedies on the computer and landed here. Baking soda did not help, but putting the foil on actually instantly gave relief! The pain in my finger came back after a few moments, but not near as bad. After about 10 more minutes it lessened and so on. My burn is bordering on 3rd degree and this really helped keep it tolerable. Thank you to all for the great tip.

As weird as it sounds, aluminum foil works. I was REALLY skeptical at first but it took away all the pain. If you have a minor burn, just give it a try. In my opinion its better than sticking mustard, egg whites and potato slices on a burn- haha people are just asking for an infection, honestly.

My little girl asked me to melt some chocolate in the microwave. I put the chocolate in for 1 minute. I turned my back to get another bowl an my daughter had opened the microwave and stuck her finger in the melted chocolate she has screamed for an hour and a half in pain. Her finger is blistered. She has had her finger in a bowl of ice cold water for the last hour and a half. I then googled what I could do to help the burn to stop stinging. I read that aluminum foil works I found this quite bizarre. I thought it was worth a try. This actually worked straight away. I'm impressed.

Burnt my hand with steam from an iron this morning.

With two young girls, I was concerned about how I was going to manage with a burnt hand. The pain was really bad, I put it in cold water but taking it out brought on sharp stinging pains. I just wanted to ease the pain and found this site.

So I wrapped my fingers with Al foil and then sticky taped the outside to keep the foil in place.

Yes, at first the pain was excruciating. Felt like I had put a cyan pepper patch on it, the heat was painful. Then the pain subsided, and is now bearable.

I believe the foil acts to conduct heat away from the burn area but it also compresses the area to reduce the body's reaction to a burn, particularly in reducing the blistering. There are scientific papers regarding this treatment.

Either way, I am so glad I found this site and would recommend this remedy to anyone who has had a 2nd degree burn. Do remember to seek medical advice if you don't feel any pain at all, and also if it really concerns you.

I burnt my fingers and palm badly when I picked up my curling wand by the heated end. The pain was intense, and I got small relief with ice packs, but I knew I would have problems the next day (and indeed for the next week) unless I could find another remedy.

I admit I was skeptical about the alfoil remedy, but I wrapped up each finger individually in foil, and then my palm, and the pain intensified. The pads of my fingers were throbbing. I kept reading all the comments about the foil, and thought, "just be patient; it will get better". ANd indeed it did. After about 20 mins the pain huad subsided substantially. I kept pressing the foil on my fingers which seemed to draw more heat out.

I went to bed with the foil still on, and a pair of cotton gloves to hold it in place. This morning I had 3 small blisters on my fingers, but no pain. I am amazed, as normally that type of burn would cause quite a bit of damage.

Thanks so much to everyone for the great advice - I am passing this on to all my friends with children.

Wow!!! Burned my whole right hand on top with boiling water, and tried carbonate of soda, but that made it worse. After about 6 hours of icy water, my husband came across this site and we decided to try the foil idea. It took about 30 minutes of waves of severe pain, but now 3 hours later, pain free almost. Can't feel the skin on my pointer finger, though. How long do I leave the foil on for though? Thanks for the wonderful idea.

I burned my hand grabbing a pot, cold water was the only releif. I then found out about the aluminum foil. I tried it out and it worked! I then realized that NaCl is in your SWEAT, and NaCl is what is used in treating burns in the hospital. Moral of the Story is that Sweat or moisture is the real key to relief and the aluminum foil made my hand sweat!