The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
I am writing with another story about using foil to cover a burn. Redundant, yet had I had not run across this cure in the "latest posts" so often, I might not have thought of it when I burned both hands badly in a cooking accident. As it happened, once I collected myself I asked my daughter to break a couple of eggs into a plate while I ran water over my hands. Then I worked the eggs through my fingers until the egg had heated up to about room temp. I had read about this somewhere: It felt heavenly! After I rinsing, we created foil mitts around my hands, pressing the foil down between the fingers. When my hands would start to feel too hot, I cooled them down by waving them in the air and a couple of times, I had to pull the mitts off and run water over them again. I went to sleep in those mitts, but they came off in the night. Next morning, there was very little discoloration, very light stinging, and there were no blisters at all. Amazing! I went through the day performing my usual chores and 2 days later, the nerves in my hands were completely calmed and the color was back to normal. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who wrote in to tell of this cure, which turned out to be so helpful to me in my time of need.
Aluminum foil didnt work for me, as soon as I put it on seemed its hurting even more. Burnt my finger making breakfast for my hubby, the glass plate was too close to the frying pan (damn lack of counter space) and my thumb just stuck to the plate, never experience aburnt so bad, blister in all shades of white popped up seconds later and cool running water didnt even seem to help, so even tho ure not suppose to I put ice cube on it, tht seemed to stop the pain and ofcourse we have immediate errands to run after breakfast so I got in the car with a cup full of ice. Good while its on, as soon as I remove my finger its hurts BAD. So when I finally got home found this, tried foil, sorry but I almost shat myself from pain lol then I went for alcohol, 91% rubbing alcohol, filled up a shot glass n stuck my thumb in it, first couple of minutes it stang like hell but started getting better after a while, then after keeping my thumb in alcohol I put sum toothpaste on, I can still feel it n it stings but nowhere as bad as it was before, so thnk you guys!
I was making rice on my stove, wrestling with the pot cover that sometimes will not fit on the pot. I wrestled a little too hard and tipped the pot of boiling water over, spilling it all over my right hand. Living in AZ in July, I have no cold water running from my faucet. I had to pour a bowl of referigerated filtered water and soak my hand in that. With my left hand I started Googling home remedies on my iPhone. I tried everything I could find, from onion juice to potato slices. In the end I had to settle for a cold compress to keep the pain away.
After about 5 hours, I finally found this site with people recommending foil. Decided to give it a try, but the foil made my hand burn so much I had to smother my foiled hand in the cold compress. After about an hour of holding my hand this way, I decided to change out the foil. Weird thing: as soon as I took the foil off, the burning went away. The pain has come back but nowhere as intensely as it had been before. Not sure if I'll try the foil again, but the cold compress is going to snuggle in bed with me tonight.
First day of the school holidays, time to mow the lawn so the kids can play. Out comes the old lethal petrol mower. 'Stay back kids, it's got a big blade and it's very dangerous.' Twenty minutes later and it's not working properly. So I reach down and pointlessly touch the exhaust plate. Three burnt fingers literally sticking to the plate as the flesh cooks away. Screaming, shouting, point safely made about the dangers of the lawnmower. Two hours of ice packs later, it was still like i'd just burnt them. Found this site. Utterly brilliant. Top tips: tin foil should be shiny side down on the burn. Also, crumpling foil helps. And wrap around the bottom with sellotape/scotch tape to seal. I look like a rubbish version of the Terminator, my kids have called me 'silly' for the past few hours, but 30 minutes later and the pain is all but gone. KEEP THE FOIL ON, THIS TOTALLY WORKS!!!
The aluminum foil is a true miracle worker. I burned my fingertips from pulling a pan out of a 425 degree oven w/ a hand towel (dumb move). I was instantly burned & could see slight blistering take effect right away. I ran my fingertips under cold water, which works like a charm if you want to stand there for two hours wasting water. Then I resorted to using frozen bags of veggies or whatever type of frozen goods I had in my freezer that would fit my hand comfortably. It did ease my pain, but the second I would let go, the pain comes right back. I was tired of temporary relief, I was desperate to sleep!! Low & behold, I finally went online (took me long enough) & found this wonderful website about using aluminum foil. OMG, I'm in such disbelief how quickly the pain disappeared. My fingertips are happy again! & I was so amazed I had to share my story to how foil became my sandman! I can now sleep in peace. Thanks for reading!
Long story short, burned myself (again! ) on the grill cover. VERY hot. Went searching for some relief after holding a cold pak on two fingers for 30 min. They are now wrapped in foil and it is working.... Who knew??!! Tough to type but the pain is subsiding!!!
As you can probably tell by the date that this was written- July 5th- what this one is related to.
So I was at my daughters house for the 4th last night and we were doing the obligatory sparklers and such. As we are doing this I was trying to recall the ICD-9 codes for accidental burns and blown off fingers due to fireworks. I used to work at a hospital and I would type up the emergencies from the previous night. So of course I always dreaded the 5th of July.
My son-in-law was lighting some Small Bee Spinners in his hand and throwing them in the air, I liked the effect and in all my experience and wisdom I thought.... "hey I should try that"..........
Anyway...after I washed the black scorch marks off my thumb left by the fuse I could see that my skin had turned white and I was getting a blister. The pain was searing and unrelenting. I drove home and immediately went to Earth Clinic and tried the aluminum foil. Within 15 minutes the pain had subsided enough that I was able to sleep. I removed the foil this morning and the blister has gone down and it feels fine. I am impressed!
Thank you to all of you who share your remedies and experiences! And I guess I can add an obvious remedy... Prevention... Do not light fireworks while holding them, duh.
I burnt my hand on the oven rack last night getting pizzas off the rack. The pizza slid off so fast my left hand had a washcloth, my right hand an oven mitt. The wash cloth dropped out of my hand and my reaction grabbed the oven rack. I had my hand under cold water on and off for 2 hours, mostly had a cold rag tightly wrapped around it. It continued to keep burning. I took tylenol within a half hour after it happened, but the pain barely decreased. I got online immediately as I hoped running cold water was the best first thing to do, than what the next best thing to do was.
I reviewed about 8 websites with different home remedies and found this site with the foil. I thought it was just a hoax and my husband would call me a sucker, but I wrapped my fingers with foil. I didn't use long enough foil so I kept it on for just a few minutes and went back to the cold rag. It was getting close to bed time so I figured to give it another try since my hand was still burning and it was over 2 hours later. I wrapped it with foil and taped it onto my finger and than wrapped the cold rag around it. Within minutes the heat was lifted. Since I was going to sleep I put a storage bag around my hand and secured it with a hairtie, so I could sleep with the rag on. I figured I would remove it soon after, but I slept for hours through the night, before I took the bag and the rag off. A few hours more I took the foil off, and put aloe and the bag back on so I didn't get wet aloe all over the place. I had 3 burns on my hand, the palm side of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Before I put the foil on my finger I could see that the burns were beginning to blister, but the skin color was the same, not red, just barely a pink shade darker.
This morning, my hand looks normal, feels 95% normal. The burns feel like tight skin, a little warm burning, but nothing compared to the fire burning feeling from last night. Great idea, I was so skeptical, but definetely worked.
Holey moley!!! This really works! I burned two fingers with hot oil while trying to season a wok. Cold water felt great but I couldn't leave my hand in cold water forever. I tried toothpaste. It worked for about 2 minutes and then the PAIN was back. I tried baking soda. That worked until the paste dried up. The PAIN was back. So I found this site. Foil?? Yeah right. But the PAIN throbbing in my hand said "Don't knock it until you've tried it. " So I tried it. I'm so glad I did. It still hurts but now it's pain instead of PAIN. And it's getting better. I will have foiled fingers for the rest of the day. Thanks for the advice.
I steam burned my finger badly tonight removing covering form veggies cooking in micro. Not knowing you aren't supposed to apply ice that is what I did immediatly and then continued to apply for about two hours. I also tried fresh aloe vera from garden and a cream with a numbing ingrediant and neither worked. I came to the computer to do some research and found this site. I first wrapped in foil with ice compress but not much relief and finally removed compress. I still have some pain but it is so much less I can'r believe it and I may even be able to sleep which I feared I wouldn't with the amount of pain I was having. I am amazed and will share this remedy with friends and family! Thank YOU!!!!!!
While I was pulling a pan out of my 450 degree oven my hot pad slipped and I touched the oven rack with my thumb. Major burn and pain!! It blistered immediately and I ran cool water on it and started to google burn relief when I came upon this site. After about 30 min of running my thumb under cold water, I decided to try the foil method... Although it sounded crazy. There were so many positive reviews, and figured what have I got to lose. I wrapped my thumb with foil, and the pain was intense. I remember reading that you have to be patient, so I stuck with it. After 30 min of feeling like my thumb was on fire, it started to slowly feel better. Kept the foil on and after 3 hours there was almost no pain! Amazing! I left the foil on overnight and in the morning there was literally no pain and the blisters were gone. This site (and the foil) saved me, and my thumb!
Yes aluminum foil works I was just trying to pour some tea next thing u know my whole left hand is in so much pain after a couple of hours of trying water that only helped for like 5 min I put aluminum foil helped so much.
Just burned my thumb taking hot oatmeal out of the microwave. Ice wasn't doing it, so I googled burn remedies and found this page. The tin foil is really helping! The burning sensation is slowly diminishing. Thanks, everyone!
Richard From Uk (Southampton, Hampshire) on 06/01/2012:
Just a note to say thank you.
I managed to safely remove paint from a door frame using a heat gun until the last ten seconds of the job - perhaps thinking of the next task - when I burned 3 fingers with the heat gun (as you said ... doh! ).
While immersing my fingers in cold water I looked online and found this website. Keen to stop the pain I took your advice and selected a double solution - aluminium foil aloe vera. The foil-fingers looked a bit silly in the health food shop to buy aloe vera gel, but worth it. I applied aloe vera, re-wrapped the fingers in aluminium foil, wrapped it all up with cloth plaster/tape [to strap the foil in place and allow me to continue working on the door frame, sanding etc], and here I am a few hours later without pain despite 3 sizeable burn blisters.
The traditional UK "old wives tale" remedy involves applying butter, which in my experience doesn't help and from research tonight might cause infection.
Thank you so much, your advice has been most helpful. I'm not sure which bit helped - a) aluminium foil or b) aloe vera. Perhaps both?
Grabbed a cast iron skillet right off the grill last night - potholder was on the other hand! D'oh! Had my hand under cold running water less than five seconds later, then in a bowl of water with cold packs for about an hour, but even after all of this, there was still immediate, unbearable pain when my hand was removed from water. Did a search for other remedies, found this site. Crumpled up some foil around my damaged finger and thumb; initially, after wrapping fingers in foil it still felt awful so I soaked my foil fingers - this felt better in the short term, but when I removed my hand the pain returned. Only when I left the foil alone and elevated my hand above my head for about fifteen minutes did the foil begin to do its thing correctly.
The crumpling seems to add surface area to allow the foil to conduct the heat away from the burn site more efficiently than it would from exposed skin alone. As a test of this hypothesis, I blew on the foil, and I could feel the coolness much more than I would have expected from blowing on the skin directly.
Left the foil on overnight uncovered, removed in the morning, today I have massive blisters and other tissue damage but no pain whatsoever and full use of hand. Thanks to previous posters for the inspiration!! Yay Earth Clinic!
I burnt my whole hand fingers n all taking a pan out of the oven, never felt pain like it. Tried freezing water for nearly 3-4hrs only took pain away for couple of minutes, tried cold packs same effect as cold water, then I went onto this web site and thought I'd give this tin foil thing ago as I would try anything to get rid of pain and I'll tell ya what unbelievable now don't get me wrong pain was still here for about half hour, but now it has almost completely gone, still can't believe it.
OK, I sat here for 3 hours with ice water on my hand because I got a bad burn from a hot glue gun. Laughed to myself, wow what a bunch of crap, aluminum foil, but considering the fact that I couldn't get my hand out of the ice water for more than a minute, I said What the heck ??
Well, it worked, don't get me wrong, it hurts still but the earlier post is correct it's about 97% better and I can handle that, I also tried the alcohol and that worked ok but not as well. My finger is wrapped fairly cozy but not too tight. I cannot thank you enough for this advice.
So yesterday I was changing the spark plugs on my car and decided hey while I'm at it I'll go ahead and change the oil in my riding mower too. Well, I let it run for a few minutes to warm the oil up and failed to let everything cool down. The owner's manual says to unplug the spark plug before draining the oil.... So, I went for the spark plug wire and wasn't thinking that the big shiney tube next to it was the exhaust. Long story short, I burned the crap outta my palm near my thumb, my middle finger and my ring finger... OUCH! I immediately ran inside to run cold water on it. Of course, every time I took it out from under the water I wanted to scream it hurt so bad. I grabbed some frozen corn and headed to the computer where I found this site. I saw the Aluminum Foil thing and couldn't imagine how something so crazy would work, but I decided to give it a try since I have no insurance and didn't want to go to the ER. I wrapped the foil around each finger individually and then around the palm of my hand. I had read that it may continue to burn for a little while, so I waited... Within 10-15 min the burning had gone from a 9. 5 to a 2. No more pain! I kept it on for about 4 hours, which was when I couldn't feel any pain at all, and then removed it. Still no pain. I decided that putting some anti-biotic cream on it wouldn't hurt, so I did so. It is now the next evening and I have to say I am completely amazed!!! I do have some small blistering, but it isn't even tender to the touch. I was able to change my cam sensor on my car today!!! I burnt my right hand, which of course I am right handed, and was still able to use a wrench and sockets with no problems!
Thank you so very much Earth Clinic and to all of the people who commented with their results!!
I've steam burnt my thumb tonight after 10mins under cold water, the stinging was still there. I tried some cream but it still hurt, I read about this tin foil and omg it works, I sat here for over an hr with 2 ice pops and everytime they melted it hurt again this foil is amazing usefull tip. Thankyou internet and whoever came up with this mad idea. You're my hero tonight
Yea, this so worked! I burned myself moving a hot log and it really hurt I ran it under cool water ( never apply ice it makes it feel better but burns the skin more) when I wrapped the foil once around my thumb the pain intensified for a minute and then eased up a lot. By fifteen minutes it had faded to almost nothing. Interestingly the foil around the burn was really hot. It seemed to transfer the heat away from the bUrn. Cool!
Shannon M. (Long Beach, California) on 04/09/2012:
I was an unbeliever. Now I am a believer. My oven mitten slipped, and I pushed in the oven rack with my bare thumb. 2 hours with an ice pack, and it still hurt when I removed the ice pack. I did not want to try the aluminum foil because it sounds so... Unbelievable. At first the pain intensified for 2-4 minutes, and then it subsided totally. WOW! I only kept the foil on for an hour. The pain did not return. Thanks!
After reading that aluminum foil worked for a lot of people I thought I'd try it. I burnt my pinky and ring finger when the spaghetti pot slipped as I was draining the boiling water off. One thing that a lot of people said was that the pain increased after putting the aluminum foil on. It didn't increase for me, just was the same as when I took my hand out of the cold water, but that was really bad pain. After I put the foil on I put a zip lock bag full of cool water on top of the foiled fingers. This decreased the burning. I was able to increase the amount of time I had my foiled fingers out from under the bag until they were no longer burning. I went ahead and left the foil on over night even though they weren't burning anymore. If you can stand the burning, just dealing with it for awhile is probably good, but for kids I'd suggest my approach.
Yeah! The foil sounded crazy, but when you are in pain you will try anything. While lifting the foil from a pan of ribs that just came out of the oven the steam rolled across the top of my thumb. Spent the last 2 hours holding ice cubes on it but as soon as I pulled the ice away the pain and burning came back. Thought I would check EC and see if anyone had a quick cure. The Tin Foil WORKS!!! Thank you all! That's why I keep coming back to this site. Love EC!
Emilia Tokes - from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I poured 100degrees Celcius boiling water on my whole left hand last night by accident, when I wanted to pour it in my tea pot. The pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream and die. I had 3 fractures, among which one open and it didn't burn this bad. I spent a good 4 hours dipping my hand in cold water, but as soon as I took it out - it would sting and burn like crazy. I googled -- I tried the rubbing alcohol, lasted a good 30 seconds ? I tried the white of eggs but, it was not practical for me, as it was 11pm and I really wanted to go to sleep. I found this this site, I read a lot of the foil paper and I said - I have nothing to lose. I wrapped my hand in foil paper. The first 30 seconds were unbearable! The first minute was painful. Near the end of the first 5 minutes though, I already noticed a diminition of pain! I wrapped my hand in a light scarf, I attached the base near my wrist with a hair crunchie and went to bed.
I woke up this morning, my hand was cured!! No kidding. I have pictures of my hand totally red from the burning and totally white fresh out of the foil paper. It's a miracle solution! And you can sleep with it, if you happen to burn yourself in the afternoon, or evening like me.
I HIGHLY recommend the foil paper. I cannot believe that I can actually type with both 2 hands a night after I burned my left hand and I am speaking of the whole palm being burned, between the fingers and on top of the thumb, the middle and the ring fingers, as the boiling water ran through the fingers!
I was making crepes late last night and not thinking properly, grabbed a plate that had been sitting in a 180 degree oven for a good 10 minutes with a thin teatowel. A blister immediately formed on the tip of my thumb and like most people here, ran it under cool water and then placed it in a bowl of cold water. Every time I lifted my thumb out of water, severe pain and aches would happen again.
I hopped on the net hoping a solution would help me and voila! Found this site, and was at first incredibly skeptical about the effectiveness of tin foil. An hour into reading the comments I decided to give it a go due to my tiredness and at first it didn't seem to work until I read someone's comment about too many layers of foil. Unwrapping half the layers I had on, I could feel the effects of tin foil immediately!
Super glad to have found this solution and have recommended it to those close to me!
I suggested the aluminum foil to a patient after aloe and lavender oil did not make a difference. The foil did wonders in about 2 minutes! It is hard to believe but it works.
Ellen (Fall River, Massachusetts, Usa ) on 03/08/2012:
Burned my thumb opening the crock pot. Over an hour of cold water and ice... I put baking soda on and covered it with the foil. Much better. How WEIRD!!!
