Burn Treatment

This was my first bad burn (picture is from back in 2001), and this is my arm slapped down onto my scanner to document the brand. I had been torchworking and I used my mouth as a third hand, holding onto a rod with a gather of hot glass on the end of it... as I reached over to my side to open a kiln door I smelled BBQ and I thought, who's grilling? And then I realized it was my flesh. I had to pull the glass off my arm. Yuck. But I healed. You can hardly see the scar now.

Okay so yesturday a friend in the studio burned herself, torched her finger (rather than the glass) and yes I have done this as well. I have a scar on my right index finger. Well, Jan was alright, she is a tough cookie. Here is my advice for bad burns:

1. Run the burn under cold water (as cold as you can stand) for 15-20minutes.
The cold will be soothing for you and the running water will take away the heat of the burn. If you do not do this, the sub-levels of tissue under the burn will suffer even more damage after-the-fact, as you are sitting there freaking out that you just seriously burned yourself.

Seriously, if you do nothing else - do #1 - it helps immensely

2. Aloe. It helps, works pretty well, promotes healing and feels soothing. It's kinda lame, but easy to have around and it feels good. Also you can get aloe gel from the drug store that has lidocane in it, which will help kill the pain a little (don't use this if you are alergic) - its the gel that people use on sun burns.

3. After-the-fact - don't pop the blister! Let yourself heal properly. A blister will most likely form, if you resist popping it you will prevent infection.

okay - one last bit of advice - there is a great homeopathic remedy for burns, I have had this stuff highly recommended to me and I have seen this save a hand that was burned by a huge glass torch, and I just ordered 2 jars of it (one for home and one for the studio) so I will post again with a review sometime:

Homeopathic Burn Stuff "Keokuk" is the stuff, and evidently its the shiz-nit for bad burns. I have been meaning to stock up on it for a long time. Now is as good a time as any! And now Aquila Glass Studio will have a jar on hand as well!