Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Hold at once under lukewarm running water for 10 to 20 minutes, then cover loosely and cleanly.
The heat keeps working in the tissue after the accident; cooling interrupts that and clearly eases the pain.
Cooling does not replace assessment of deep or extensive burns, or burns to face, hands and genitals.
Never ice or a cool pack — that damages the tissue further. Nothing from the kitchen on it: no oil, no flour, no butter, no toothpaste. With large areas and in children cool only the spot and keep the body warm.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.