Burn wounds in the bush?

[Cody1771]

funny side note on superglue. originally invented for would care during WW1 or 2, cant remember, but it was found that the glue had TONNS of toxins in it. imo buy the medical first aid glue... if you can find it. i tried and its dang near impossible because any medical professional will tell you, you should be doing anythign exept getting to a docter

as far as the sugar and petro jelly goes. ive seen this before. i would not reccomend it for fresh burns as it will trap heat in but for lacerations or burns that are days old and fully cooled it does work quite well. but you have to flush it and clean it regularly. not that you wouldnt be anyways. for me, im a big fan of just cooling it off with water, and then using neosporin or somethign of the like and some 2nd skin. great stuff and has 100000x uses.

thats my .02

 

[Hltoppr]

I hope that anyone trying the sugar treatment on burns is not medically trained, because it seems like a sure way to act outside the scope of training, (at any level), and get your butt sued off when a raging infection occurs. I would never use such a treatment on anyone; or myself for that matter.

Burns to the hands, feet, face, or genitals are all candidates for immediate evacuation, and I would be very conservative with this, especially if there was even the remote possibility of an airway burn. There is a great deal of information on these injuries in almost any EMT or wilderness medicine book, and they're probably one of the most worried about overlanding injuries. In my experience, the most common occurence is due to a hot water burn injury, when someone is preparing food. Of course, most folks worry about the worst case scenario, such as a vehicle fire.

As the varying treatments depend upon the type of burn (chemical, electrical, heat), severity of the burn, and area burned, it's too lengthy to really go into in one post, so I'd suggest reviewing a text to get the full scoop. Note that treatments vary over the years, so try and find an up to date manual. I'm a big fan of the Wilderness Medical Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School (WMI/NOLS).

-H-

 

[SunTzuNephew]

Good day.

Thought I'd jump in on my first post to the board, and share a bit of info. I'm a physician, btw - board certified in Emergency, Disaster, Travel and Hyperbaric medicine.

While sugar, or honey, isn't what I'd reach for for a burn, they both have been used (recently, even) to treat wounds.

Honey has some mild antibiotic properties (Cooper, et al, Antibacterial Properties of Honey against strains of Staphylococcus aureus from infected wounds, Journal of the Royal Medical Society, vol 92 June 1999; Moore, et al, Systematic review of the use of honey as a wound dressing, http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/1/2 ). Also, honey and sugar both are hypotonic, they draw moisture from the wounds creating a 'dry' environment where bacteria cannot grow.

Sugar has been used for about 40 years or more to treat indolent (hard to treat) skin wounds - pressure sores, diabetic ulcers, etc. Pour sugar into the wound, when it liquifies and turns into a syrup rinse it out and repack. There was a product where just plain old granular white sugar was mixed with povidone-iodine (like Betadine TM) and purpose made for this use, it's not available any more because the manufacturer had some issues with the FDA and it's so easy to make (just add a little povidone to some sugar, stir to coat, put in wound).

However, there are better products available. On expedition however it's nice to have a fallback if needed.

 

[Martyn]

Thank you for your feedback, it's gratifying to hear from a Doctor with an open mind.

 

[Desolation]

Thank you for your feedback, it's gratifying to hear from a Doctor with an open mind.

X2 it was lonely out here, though I am used to it

 

[Connie]

Our vet used sugar to pack the wound to prevent infection when a family pet had to have its leg amputated. It worked great and there was a full recovery (except of course for 1 less leg).

 

[SunTzuNephew]

funny side note on superglue. originally invented for would care during WW1 or 2, cant remember, but it was found that the glue had TONNS of toxins in it. imo buy the medical first aid glue... if you can find it. i tried and its dang near impossible because any medical professional will tell you, you should be doing anythign exept getting to a docter

as far as the sugar and petro jelly goes. ive seen this before. i would not reccomend it for fresh burns as it will trap heat in but for lacerations or burns that are days old and fully cooled it does work quite well. but you have to flush it and clean it regularly. not that you wouldnt be anyways. for me, im a big fan of just cooling it off with water, and then using neosporin or somethign of the like and some 2nd skin. great stuff and has 100000x uses.

thats my .02

Medical superglue (called DermaBond(tm)) is amazingly expensive - retail a single-use vial may cost $30 or more http://www.chinookmed.com/cgi-bin/i...rmabond--------------------------------------

And, it has a really short shelf life - especially in a vehicle kit that is exposed to high/low temps, pressure changes, crushing or vibration (keep in a ziplock bag, just in case).

Regular superglue is not only not sterile, is painful to use..

And skin glue is only good in parts of the skin that have little tension on them - the scalp, for example.

You're correct in that you shouldn't be closing wounds in the field - unless you can be certain that you get everything out of a wound that can cause an infection (including dead tissue) don't close it, just bandage it. It will still heal, with a somewhat more noticeable scar, but if the scar is too bad a plastic surgeon can revise it once it is healed up. Much better to do that than develop sepsis.