Burn

Do you ever know the types of burn and how to know the degree of the burn? Below is the knowledge you can get from a doctor to distinguish what kind of degree is the burn especially if it takes time to reach a doctor so you would know how to apply your own first aid treatment while waiting for a treatment:

Burn is an injury to the skin by heat, chemicals, electricity, or radiation. There are three types of burn. A first-degree burn is one in which the skin turns red, but there are no blisters. Only the epidermis, the outermost part of the skin, is injured. A second-degree burn goes somewhat deeper. There is blistering, and the skin turns very red. A third-degree burn penetrates the skin completely and destroys both epidermis and dermis (the part of the skin beneath the epidermis). Because nerve endings in the skin are destroyed, a third degree burn may actually cause less pain than a more superficial first- or second-degree burn.

Any burn that involves one tenth or more of the body's surface may be regarded as potentially serious or major burn, especially if a large area of the skin is involved. The second danger is infection, which the doctor can control by administering antibiotics. (ref: Dr. Benjamin F. Miller, M.D., Family Health Guide and Medical Encyclopedia)

May I share you my experience of third-degree burn when I was 18 years old. I was in the province that time, a country girl where the place that I lived was not reached with electricity...at that time. It was a time of peanut harvest. My Aunt asked me to accompany her maid while she was away. My Aunt went to visit her children in Manila where they were studying.

I want to show my Aunt that I could handle responsibly the task that she asked me to do, take charge of the harvested peanuts from her farm that her tenants deliver to her house. Having no electricity in the area at that time, I tried to light the gas lamp, two of it. The neighbours were helping to pluck the peanuts from its stem and we need lamps because I want to finish everything before my Aunt comes back from Manila so we have to work even at night time.

I never knew that the two gas lamps cannot be lighted because there was something wrong with both. Stubborn that I am, I insist of lighting it and I did not listen to my father's warning that the two lamps might have a problem and I should not force to make it function. Luckily, my father and one of my elder brother was present at that time to accompany me too. 

When the first gas lamp did not function, I turned it off and proceeded with the second lamp. Because of my failure to light the first gas lamp, I began to get upset and began to pump the gas tank of the lamp so hardly. Feeling more angry because it really did not work, I immediately open the gas tank that is already full of air. I was really lucky that I opened the gas tank before it exploded. My position at that time, I was sitting at the floor, my left leg stretched forward, at the right side of my left leg is a small lighted lamp. When I opened the gas lamp, the pressure inside was so strong that the gas spread to the floor and the light of the small lamp caught it.

My father shouted because the fire already spread to the floor. My brother removed his shirt and he used it to extinguish the fire while my father really panicked because he saw that the portion of my pants on my left left caught fire and spread upwards so rapidly. I panicked when I saw my left part of my pants burning and the first thing I remember was the water inside the drum in the laundry area. I ran and because of panic I jumped the 7 steps ladder, fell to the ground on a sitting position, got up without feeling anything, ran to the laundry area, only to find out that the drum is empty :)

My father chased me while the fire was already in my knee level. My father grabbed me, ran his hands in my pants downwards to extinguish the fire going rapidly upwards my body. After about a few minutes, my left leg looks like a chicken skin plucked out of feathers from a boiling water :) A few minutes more, the fats of my legs was slowly dripping and gradually I felt the pain, unendurable pain.

My father did not believe in conventional treatment and he was scared to bring to the hospital. He does not want to see me wrapped. My ordeal started. I have to stay at home because I can't walk while my feet starts swelling. Since it was slowly developing a pus, the flies smelled it and begin to land at my leg. One night I felt a pain and I felt something is eating my flesh only to find out that the eggs of the flies hatched at my burned leg and...you already know what I mean :)

It was dark so I did not immediately notice that "thing" in my leg. When morning came before I saw these small "species" enjoying to swim in the pus of my leg. I was so scared that I blamed my father of not sending me to the hospital for treatment. Upon seeing it, my father boiled guava leaves (traditional medicine that I really believe in its healing properties because of my experience), took one feather of a chicken and slowly brushed that small "things" in my leg. It was so painful that I can't explain how angry I was with my father.

That guava leaves was very effective. That "things" never came back. However, I suffered for three months with pus in my leg, swelled bigger than the upper part of my leg and unexplained pain every night. My leg was numb and I cannot even get up. I think my anti-body at that time was strong that I managed to overcome it and healed without seeing a doctor and without any medicine or ointment. It was a painful experience. So, be careful not to burn any part of your body.