Burn Remedy for Pipers and Others

[mso489]

The remedy for small burns such as might be encountered in lighting a pipe is to wrap the burn in a wet tea bag; a fresh one is best because you want the tannins. This is a home remedy from my wife who was a farm girl in rural northeast Missouri. Since I just burned my index finger with an over-active match, I used this remedy and it worked well. I'm back at the keyboard and all is well. No blistering or sore spot. Might not work as well on a deeper burn, but something for your first aid memory bank.
My wife repeated this to a radio show, Peoples' Pharmacy, and her surgeon heard it and smilingly repeated it to her as his new home remedy for burns. I think for my wife, this was an ideal remedy for kitchen burns. She was her grandma's sous chef (assistant cook) in preparing bountiful lunches for the farm crews. Although her grandpa died before she was born, he used to ask farm workers if they wanted the extra good lunch or the regular lunch, and if they wanted the extra good lunch, that meant the second shift at the table.

 

[ejames]

Never tried tea bags for burns but have used them for bleeding after having teeth yanked--as suggested by my dentist.

 

[jvnshr]

Great advice MSO. For minor burns you may also use the toothpaste, I tried it once and it works (with no side effects), however some time ago I read an article about the possible side effects it can cause so I am not advising this one. Here is another one, apparently peeing on a burned skin heals it. Great survival tactic in case you don't have any medicine around. Tried and proved Well, at least you have the least disgusting remedy.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I tend to be a klutz, and am prone to cuts, burns, abrasions, burns.......tea bags are great, and I always have a couple of aloe plants on standby duty.

 

[fishnbanjo]

Never heard of the tea bags but will remember it, I do have aloe in nearly every room in the house, I'm not a klutz but if I look at anything wrong my skin bleeds as it has gotten paper thin post chemotherapy, I used to be abrasive free but now even an electric shaver can nick me badly.
When I was at Bridge Ramp on duty in Danang a Vietnamese woman came running into the guard shack with a howling baby. Ordinarily you had to be tremendously cautious as the VC were known to plant bombs inside children and send them into guard shacks and military compounds hoping to have it go off when help was trying to be administered. I could easily see the child was badly burned on nearly 50% of its body and the mother had smeared it with lard or some kind of while grease.
I immediately removed the child and set it on the table and removed its diaper, we always had a GI issue Gas Can filled with water so I removed my flack jacket, fatigue shirt then my tee shirt and dipped it in a bowl I had that I used to drink from I gingerly removed as much of the grease as I could with the wet portion of the tee shirt. I had sent one of the Vietnamese soldiers who acted as interpreter if we needed one to get some towels.
When he returned with the towels I soaked one with water then placed it over the entire burn area as the other towel soaked, after the fourth change of towels the howling turned to blubbering and by the time the Medics arrived the child was still uncomfortable but no longer crying, the worst thing to put on a burn is grease, Vaseline , butter etc. as it traps the heat, tepid water is great but no rubbing I gently patted the areas with the grease which did not remove all of it but enough for the water to do its job.
The woman was screaming at me that I was hurting her child but the interpreter told her to be quiet. When the medics saw the child still had some grease on it, my tee shirt and those towels the Vietnamese woman told them I tried to hurt her child. One of the medics told the woman she should be happy I was I the guard shack because I saved her child a lot of pain and probably quite a bit of scarring since it was 2nd and 3rd degree scalding hot water burns.

banjo

 

[jvnshr]

What a great story Banjo. Thanks for sharing.