I have a question about burns?

Is it infected, do you think?

It needs a medical assessment if there is any sign of this.


In future, I would keep any burn in cold running water for a long time, rather than any other first aid treatment.


I would also try aloe vera gel on it now.


Ow, you poor thing!

Cod liver oil in an ointment if its that bad, or Aloe Vera straight from the plant itself for minor burns....yes Ive done that before with straightners.

Bummer - I know whatchya mean about an immobilized leg; real inconvenient. As for the burn, I sorta doubt its 3rd Degree; that pretty much involves significant destruction of flesh, with all skinlayers and some-to-much subcutaneous tissue destroyed or damaged. Typically, a 3rd Degree burn will exhibit charring and sloughing of flesh, or a whitish, abnormally pale, wrinkled, "cooked" appearance, and will be deep. 3rd Degree burns generally do not heal spontaneously, and perhaps counter-intuitively, usually don't result in much pain, at least initially, because along with the other tissue damge, the nerves are destroyed. Quite often, a 3rd Degree burn will be an open wound, with seepage and commensurate high risk of infection, requiring skin grafting and/or other surgery to repair.

Still, that does sound like a nasty one. I dunno what more you can do for it than what you've already done. Being gifted with extraordinary clumsiness, along with a general lack of regard for common sense and safe practice, I manage to burn myself with some regularity. I've found neosporin or bacitracin applied topically does a great job of aiding the healing process, and whiskey taken by mouth as needed is great for the rest of the bother.

I gather you're concerned about scarring - again, I dunno, as I never really give that much thought, but from what I've read, over-the-counter and herbalist anti-scarring potions are mostly good for their sellers, while doing little harm to the burn. If spending the money makes you feel better, go for it.

Neosporin is great for preventing scarring, too.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000030.htm

If there is any possibility that it is a third degree burn, I would STRONGLY suggest that you see an MD, asap.

Third degree burns are not something to fool around with. You wouldn't want to do something that might cause serious damage.

Glitterbag--

How's the burn? How's the leg? How's the psyche?

Hi Noddy, The burn doesn't hurt as long as I keep it covered. It looks much better today. Still kind of red and angry looking. The white area in the center just sort of chipped off, and the doc have me a new prescription of the gel which is working much better. I think the other tube was just too old.

The leg feels really good, in fact for a moment I forgot you were asking about the broken knee. I got the brace off about 2 weeks ago, go in for another x-ray in 4 weeks and that should be that.

My psyche, I don't know. We have been up and down since we lost our dog, Sadie to liver cancer Feb 8th. She had made a complete recovery from her back surgery, and boom, she was in liver failure. We realize we did the best thing for her, but we miss her and so does Chloe our other dog.