[aspenmayer]

I find that oils such as petroleum jelly or olive oil do provide pain relief for burns. I can only speculate as to the method of action, but I’m clearly not the only one. Apparently even air movement or contact can cause pain to burns due to the exposure of the dermis, and possibly other reasons.

> Also, oxygen's a gas.

Yeah, I think it must be carbon dioxide or some other gas that is naturally occurring in the atmosphere that causes the painful sensation, otherwise they wouldn’t use specifically oxygen?

[lukan]

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

"HBOT helps wound healing by bringing oxygen-rich plasma to tissue starved for oxygen. Wound injuries damage the body's blood vessels, They release fluid that leaks into the tissues and causes swelling. This swelling deprives the damaged cells of oxygen, and tissue starts to die. HBOT reduces swelling while flooding the tissues with oxygen. The higher pressure in the chamber increases the amount of oxygen in the blood. HBOT aims to break the cycle of swelling, oxygen starvation, and tissue death.

HBOT prevents "reperfusion injury." This is the severe tissue damage that happens when the blood supply returns to the tissues after they have been deprived of oxygen. Blood flow can be interrupted by a crush injury, for instance. If this happens, a series of events inside the damaged cells leads to the release of harmful oxygen radicals. These molecules can do damage to tissues that can't be reversed. They cause the blood vessels to clamp up and stop blood flow. HBOT encourages the body's oxygen radical scavengers to seek out the problem molecules and let healing continue.

HBOT helps block the action of harmful bacteria and strengthens the body's immune system. HBOT can disable the toxins of certain bacteria. It also increases oxygen concentration in the tissues. This helps them resist infection. And the therapy improves the ability of white blood cells to find and destroy invaders.

HBOT encourages the formation of new collagen and new skin cells. It does so by encouraging new blood vessels to grow. It also stimulates cells to make certain substances, like vascular endothelial growth factor. These attract and stimulate endothelial cells needed for healing."

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...

[aspenmayer]

That explains why they use oxygen tents, but it doesn’t really explain why oils/fats on burns provide pain relief. The little I was able to determine was that the exposed inflamed dermis is extremely sensitive to touch/pressure even of just air or air currents, but I don’t know why this is the case.

[lukan]

Some oil has cooling properties. I suppose that is what can provide relief. With my second degree burns this year, I surely enjoyed cooling it, but with ice water.

[aspenmayer]

Ice water would also block air exposure, wouldn’t it?

I’ve also had some larger burns and immersed them in ice water for the immediate treatment, but after the first day or so, I found that petroleum jelly based topical ointments were easier to apply and maintain, as the burn was on the bottom of my foot, which was a distinctly horrible place to have a burn.

[lukan]

My burns were on the hands, which is not so nice either.

But air exposure was happening most of the time, the way I cooled my burns, so it definitely was the cooling, that did help in my case.

(A wet towel with ice in it)

And I learned to not mess with the wounds at all. I think the last time I had a burn, I opened the the blister to get the fluid pressure out. Bad idea, this time I left it and it healed way faster. It healed so good, that after my first night of pain and cooling, I did not had to do anything with it, except giving it a rest.

[aspenmayer]

Ouch, I bet that hurt! I think hands have some of the highest concentrations of nerve endings. The feet were pretty rough, and the callous constricted the blister and limited the expansion of the skin, so lancing the blister was necessary to prevent injury from the blister popping and the blister skin not covering the wound properly.

I stepped on flaming plastic barefoot and fortunately was able to almost immediately immerse the foot in water, which caused the plastic to fuse to my foot for a few hours until the ice water was able to reduce the swelling. Then my foot shrank away from the mostly rigid plastic mass. It was a pretty horrible experience all around considering the small surface area of the burn, and part of the reason why I don’t like walking around barefoot generally, if I had to guess, as it happened when I was around 5 years old. My folks would later be volunteer firefighters and first responders, and I learned a lot of field first aid skills by proxy and through my own shenanigans. I’m glad I’ve never needed to be hospitalized for serious injury, though apparently not for lack of trying.