WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GET BURNED

Hello there everybody! It’s me again. Let me ask you if you know what to do when you get burned.

Nice question no?

Apply toothpaste? Not if you brush your teeth

Apply butter? Not if you are making a cake.

Apply tomatoes? Not if you’re making a kinilaw.

And a host of other things.

When you get burned of course the first thing you will feel is pain. PAIN as I looked in Wikipedia is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.”

The pain that you feel when you get burned is really something. You feel that your body is aching. You might try to assuage the pain with anything from the fridge. Eggs, butter, tomatoes, and the like.

But here is the answer. Run your burned area for 15 min. in tap water. Believe me, the pain will be reduced right away. Trust me.

Then you apply xeroform gauze or better still silver sulfadiazine and cover with gauze. Change your dressing every day after you bathe. Then please see a doctor like me in 2 weeks if the wound does not heal or if there is pain. If I see it late you might get admitted for an infected burn wound.

And a burn wound can be admitted if in layman`s terms has the following :

CALOR means heat.

DOLOR stands for pain and inflammation. 

RUBOR stands for redness.

Then TUMOR in Latin stands for swelling.                                        

That’s it for now. Until the next time. I have a following now. Namely my dad and my uncle. But that`s how it starts right?

Michelle Marie P. Aportadera M.D.
Plastic Surgery
Diplomate in General Surgery
Master of the Arts Hospital Administration
Administrator, RD Aportadera MD SPMC BURN CENTER