Treating Burns email is a Mistake

[Tom Wesenberg]

The other day I got an email about treating burns with FLOUR, but I'm sure it should have said BAKING SODA, as flour dust can be explosive.

When I was is grade school I remember my great aunt treating burns with baking soda.

Here's the email, but keep BAKING SODA in mind, and not flour.

-------- THE BENEFIT OF FLOUR

Interesting! Who knew?


Some time ago, I was cooking some corn and stuck my fork in the boiling water to see if the corn was ready. I missed and my hand went into the boiling water!




A friend of mine, who was a Vietnam vet, came into the house, as I was screaming, & asked me if I had some plain old flour... I pulled out a bag and he stuck my hand in it. He told me to keep my hand in the flour for 10 minutes.




He said, in Vietnam, there was a guy on fire and in their panic, they threw a bag of flour all over him to put the fire out... Well, it not only put the fire out, but he never even had a blister!!!!



Long story short, I put my hand in the bag of flour for 10 mins, pulled it out and did not even have a red mark or a blister & absolutely NO PAIN.




Now, I keep a bag of flour in the fridge and every time I burn myself. *Cold flour feels even better than room temperature flour. I use the flour and have never ever had even a red spot/burn mark, or a blister! I even burnt my tongue once, put the flour on it for about 10 minutes .... the pain was gone and no burn.



Try it . . . Experience a miracle! Keep a bag of flour in your fridge and you will be happy you did!




Flour has heat absorbent property and also has a strong antioxidant property, thus it helps in burn patients if applied within 15 minutes.

“When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you should share it with others"

[Michael M]

Because cooling the wound is of paramount importance, sticking a burned hand into a sack of flour would be a mistake, whether the flour has been refrigerated or not. The highest priority is to get the temperature of the injured area back down to normal, and this is not accomplished by cocooning the wound within a substance that will effectively hold the heat in place. (Similarly, salves and ointments are not applied to burns until the wounded area has fully cooled, because otherwise that which is intended to heal will instead trap the heat within the flesh, thereby allowing further damage to take place.)

see the full rebuttal here:

https://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/flourburns.asp

and on the specific application of baking soda:


Baking soda is a very popular folk remedy for burns. It probably works by drawing some of the heat out of the burn (when baking soda dissolves in water, the result is a "cooling" sensation on the skin). However, the ability of baking soda to relieve the discomfort of the burn for any significant period of time is pretty minimal. In any case, burns should be evaluated by a doctor. This is to make sure that the depth of the burn is not too great, which could require more aggressive treatment. It is also to help remove any dead tissue that might impair healing. Placing a paste of baking soda, or anything else really, on the burn prior to showing it to the doctor just makes it harder to make this initial assessment. If you can get in to your primary care doctor right away, then that would be a good place to start for an assessment. If not, then you can go to an emergency room for a more immediate evaluation. After the doctor takes a look, they will recommend to you what you should do in terms both of wound care and also medications to relieve the pain.