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John (San Rafael, Ca) on 05/31/2012
5 out of 5 stars

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!

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Replied By 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?

Richard

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Replied By Amanda (Logan, Utah, Usa) on 06/19/2012

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!
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Replied By Emp (Atlanta, Ga) on 06/23/2012

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.
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