Steam burns fucking suck

The BBQ Pit
1

So I’m making breakfast this morning, I reached over to the toaster to put down some bread. Right as I reached across the counter, I remembered that I’d put some water on to boil in the electric teakettle, and just as that realization hit me, a second realization hit me: "FFFFUUUuuuuuuck! That hurts!!!"

I had reached my arm directly across the path of the steam exiting the spout, and it instantly hurt like a motherfucker. And a fatherfucker, and an unclefucker too. So I ran it under cold water - after a few minutes, it’s started feeling a little better, so I shut off the water, and dried my off my forearm with a kitchen towel. And I looked down in horror to see a quarter-sized patch of skin above my wrist just slough off on the inside of my forearm - it still makes me a little sick to think about it.

So I put a bunch of neosporin on it, slapped on a large band aid, and iced it for about 30 minutes, hoping that would do the trick. But the nerve endings in a patch about the size of a silver dollar were just singing the second I took the ice off - it hurt just sitting still (still does).

Compounding this, the family had to go to out for some very overdue shopping that couldn’t be put off any longer. The whole time we’re out, I keep brushing my arm against stuff, and trying to bite my tongue and not let loose a string of profanity, but failing miserably - the folks at Costco must have thought I had Tourette’s or something.

The worst was when I went into Trader Joe’s - I had to pop in to get a few things while my wife nursed our baby boy in the car, but all three other kids had to use the bathroom (of course). So they all went in to the restroom together, and I was shopping around waiting for them to finish. When they did, my 9 year old daughter ran up to surprise me, and - you guessed it, she grabbed me on the arm exactly where the burn is, hard. I swear I greyed out a little bit - I had to hold onto the cart to keep from passing out it hurt so bad.

But i made it home, and right now, I’m sitting on the couch letting it air out - my wife’s orders, since she saw her fair share of burns when she worked in the restaurant business. And the nerves in that area (really, my whole fucking forearm by now) are still singing their aria, so every little breeze hitting it just. fucking. hurts. I’m really hoping I don’t have deeper tissue damage or long lasting nerve damage.

So, yeah - steam burns eat a big bag of dicks.

2

Dude I honestly feel for you. Steam burns are a bitch. The only worse burn I’ve had was when I was frying french fries.

I turned my back for just a second and turned back around just in time to see my 2 YO reaching up to the stove for the pan (I swear she wasn’t there a second ago, her mother was supposed to be watching her). I managed to shove her away and grab the pan just in time to send a bout a pint and a half of hot oil running down the right leg of my jeans.

So my wife runs into the kitchen to see the baby lying on the floor crying and me screaming and tearing my clothes off while swearing like a drunk sailor on leave in Bangkok.

Not a good day.

3

Ouch. Glad you saved your little girl though - that could have been a lot worse. It’s amazing how kids just instinctively know the one thing they shouldn’t be doing, and then try to do that one thing.

Speaking of frying oil, that reminds me of the big Bay Area quake in '89: I was working at a restaurant, and my boss had just taken chicken out of the deep fryer and left the lid open when the quake hit. Shit goes flying, with huge stockpots coming down off shelves, and stacks of dishes dropping everywhere. I braced myself in the nearest doorway, which was an open arch between the dish station and the deep fryer, which was about two feet away.

When the shaking really started, hot oil was sloshing all over my legs - this being the late 80s and me being a metalhead high school kid, my jeans were impossibly tight, so the oil just soaked right through to the skin. By the time the pain registered, the worst of the shaking was over. When I got home, I found I had these nasty little dime-sized third degree blisters all down my legs, and I had to wear those ridiculous baggy workout pants for a couple weeks so the blisters wouldn’t stick to my jeans. My friends all started derisively calling me Hammerpants.

4

Don’t put neosporin on a burn. It’s petroleum based and ain’t much different from putting petroleum jelly, o…r please don’t … butter… (Don’t do that!). Just don’t do it.

Cold compresses and clean bandages.

5

I thought this thread would be about how trying to burn backups from Steam onto DVD wasn’t working properly. One thing I remember from high school (physics?) was that steam at 212/100 degrees F/C is worse than 212/100 degree boiling water.

6

thelurkinghorror, you got that right. I spilled some boiling water on my hand briefly from the very same teakettle the other day, and it barely phased me. But I get hit with a little steam, and suddenly I’m molting and shit.

7

Crown Prince of Irony, just please don’t put neosporin on the burn. It will hinder - not help. Neosporin is petroleum jelly with antimicrobials. But it’s still petroleum jelly, and you don’t want to seal the burn, you want to keep it clean. Petroleum jelly is a non water soluble dirt magnet.

8

Since your wife is nursing, try some breastmilk on your burn.

Breastmilk! It’s good for what ails ya!

9

If you can find it, Water-Jel was of great help to me when I had a severe sunburn several years ago. It’s a clear, unscented, water-based gel with 2.5% lidocaine.

Not sure what the current availability of it is. The company website doesn’t seem to show that original formula anymore, but they have some similar products (this looks like the same thing, but with the addition of aloe & vitamin E). Might want to check your local pharmacy to see if they have it, or something equivalent.

10

Damn-I was hoping that this would be a screed against the game download service of the same name…

11

I swear by “Foille”, a burn medicine that has been around a long time, and is still available. It is the best for stopping the pain that I have ever found.

I spilled a little (not too much, thankfully) boiling water on the back of my hand the other day, and after putting it under cold water it still hurt. I smooshed Foille over it, the pain instantly stopped, and there wasn’t even a red spot left.

Don’t know how it would work on deep steam burns, and anyway it’t too late for the OP. However, I’ll never be without it.

12

Man, I had my hands over my face and was reading this from between my fingers, the idea of burns is so freaking disturbing to me.Gahhh!

However, I honestly did not know that Neosporin doesn’t belong on a burn. It probably would have been the first this I reached for had I burnt myself. I hope I never need to use this new found info, though!

and once again, gaaahhhh!:eek:

13

OW OW OWWWW. I know that hurts.

A few years ago I was making cornbread and had put an iron skillet in a 400 degree oven to preheat. When I reached in to get it about 20 minutes later, I put on an oven mitt, not realizing the the area where the thumb connects to the rest of the mitt was wet on the outside.

I heard it hissing before the pain hit. Then I threw the skillet across the kitchen on my brand new vinyl floor. Then I was stupid enough to pick the damn thing up again and toss it into a pile of laundry in the floor by the laundry room.

When I took off the mitt, a fifty cent piece size of the skin from the web between my thumb and forefinger fell off in the floor. :eek:

I didn’t think I would ever be able to use my right hand without pain again. It was at least two weeks before I could use that hand without serious forethought and planning.

Since then, I always check to make sure oven mitts are dry, inside and out, before using.

14

loshan, I did something similar when I was a teen (ETA - I just now realized on review that your burn was from a wetoven mitt. Yeeeouch). I lived with my aunt and uncle, and my uncle’s lawnmower was a patched together piece of crap. It had a piece of cast iron pipe in place of a proper exhaust, that ran up a couple inches above the engine, then horizontally from the left of the mower deck to the right - I have no idea why my uncle did this.

I was mowing the lawn one day, and I was almost done - I had been moving along at a steady clip trying to finish so I could go over to a friend’s house, when the front mower wheel hit a small hole. The mower stopped cold, I didn’t - and as I fell forward, I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was exhaust pipe. By the time I heard my hand sizzling, I was already screaming it hurt so bad. I stuck my hand in ice water for an hour or so - I know they say you’re not supposed to do that, but damn it felt good. I couldn’t play guitar for a couple weeks (being a lefty, it was my fretting hand), and the top layer of skin on the pads of my right fingers came off in strips after a few days. And today I have zero scars from it - same with the oil burns.

I’m starting to sound like the poster boy for victims of small but severe burns. But this last time hurts way worse that any of the others.

Oh, and I took the bandage off again today to let it air out, and my oldest daughter, the one who should know better, slapped me right on the forearm, and pulled some of the loose skin back. Ow, yet again.

15

Back in the day I was cleaning the grill after work, and the first thing you do when cleaning the grill is put some water on it while it’s hot and scrape it down. However, I had not noticed that the lid on the bottle was not sealed. All the water rushed out, flashed immediately to steam, and lobstered my hand and lower forearm. By lobstered I mean that a cooked lobster was never that red.

Guess what? I still had to work. So for the next two weeks, for at least 8 hours a day, I was in screaming pain every time I got near the grill. They say that you can get used to anything if you do it enough. Let me tell you, you’ll never, ever get used to that much pain. I promise you.

16

I dropped a cup of ~150 degree water for tea on my foot at a concessions booth in a theatre once. The water soaked through my shoe and into my sock before I could rip the thing off. Those hurt for a couple days, and I had to keep walking on it. Not being able to get the shoe off quickly was agony, even as the water cooled down a little through the shoe.

17

Ouch! I’ve never been burned by steam before, but this week I was taking something out of the oven, and our stupid fucking dog decided to jump on me to see if she couldn’t get herself some people food. I dropped the pan and it’s contents all over my forearm, and about a third of it is burned right now (second degree, near as I can figure). I flipped the fuck out on the dog (which I kind of feel bad for), and iced the thing. Seeing the skin blister and kind start to slide off was disgusting though. Hope your arm feels better soon.

18

I discovered an unexpected way to sustain steam burns while making chapatis. The way I learned to make them is that when the cooking is done, you pull away the pan and leave the chapati directly on the flame for a couple seconds, to make it puff up big and give it a few tasty burnt spots.

Of course, what makes the thing puff up so attractively is the steam in it. I learned to make the dough fairly wet to get this effect. A spatula isn’t actually necessary to flip a chapati. You can grasp the edge with fingertips and flip it perfectly safely. And after the final step, putting it directly on the flame, not wanting to damage a spatula, I used my bare hands to take it off the burner and quickly toss it onto a nearby plate. This can also be done safely without getting too near the flame or getting burned by touching the hot bread.

What I hadn’t figured on was the act of touching it makes a tiny rupture in the delicate but pressurized puffy area, releasing a jet of steam aimed directly at your hand. Owww FUCK. Instantaneous first-degree burn. I think part of why steam is so mean is that it’s so fast-acting even the best reflexes can’t reflex in time to avoid injury. Since then I’ve learned to safely avoid the steam jet, and better yet not create it. Or maybe just go with corn tortillas, which don’t puff and are therefore safer.

19

If the burn is bad enough (2nd degree) go to the drugstore and get Silver sulfadiazine, also known as Silvadene. Use it with gauze and tape for the first several days.

Silvadene is absolutely the best anti-microbial treatment for burns. However, it does inhibit cell growth, so after a few days (when the worst has past) you will want to switch to neosporin.

20

Goddammit, my oldest slapped me right on the burn, once again.

Internal censor failure error code: $%&!!!
Result: kids learn fun new words.