Advice on taking care of a burn?

Go to the ER now. If it is developing puss it is infected. If it is an MRSP infection nothing you can do yourself will cure it.

Thanks, will do

Yeah.. It is definitely infected and if the infection is under the wound, I would seek medical help. I don’t think there is much you can do yourself at this point; I personally would go get checked out before the situation worsens (bacteria colonize elsewhere, infection enters bloodstream, etc.).

P.S. The word we’re looking for is “pus”. I always get a giggle out of it when someone uses it, but “puss” is… something else. :P

@MissAnthrope well that explains all the meowing, lol Thanks for the advice everyone, I’ll head off to the ER right after my Statistic final.

I think you should go to the doctor as well. However, don’t be panicked. Severe infections like a flesh eating bacteria are very painful. The tricky part of that infection is many times there is no evidence on the skin surface as it eats away the flesh and muscle from the inside, but the person does have a lot of pain. The pus does not mean it is some sort of very dangerous scary horrible infection. If the pus is clear is might just be fighter cells, while if it is cloudy or green it might actually be infection. But, I agree you should have it looked at ASAP, and get proper treatment. Probably an antibioic is in order, and topical is not sufficient.

You may need oral antibiotics. Hope your Statistics final went well. (my all-time least favorite first-year class)

Was it puss (that is white thick and smelly) or is it just fluid (clear yellowish and quite liquidy) under a blister? If you burn yourself bad enough then you get a fluid filled blister. As you generally don’t get pus without swelling and redness I’m going to guess it was blood plasma. What you didn’t want to do with that wass remove the scab as that was what was keeping infections out. From the sounds of it needs professional wound management now.

I’m surprised the hospital/doctor didn’t prescribe you some topical antibiotics when you first went in (if you did go in). My son severely burned his hand when he was a toddler and we had to keep it bathed in antibiotic creams and bandages for a couple of weeks while it healed. We changed the bandages daily.

It sounds like you need to do this now so definitely go see a doctor.

I would take everyone elses advice and seek medical attention at this point. I do however have a good tip my dad taught me on how to handle a burn right after it happens. When you burn yourself, take whatever you burned yourself with and put it close enough to the burn so that you feel the heat, but the flame isn’t touching your skin. (but only keep it there for a couple seconds.) Yes, it will probably still scar depending on the burn, but I found it heals them very nicely. Did that make any sense? I feel like it didn’t.

Got an antibiotic to take, the pus is clear, had to get some tissue removed as it was a “mild” 3rd degree or really bad 2nd degree burn. @tranquilsea I didn’t go in right away because I’ve had a couple burns similar in severity before that I took care of myself.

@King_Pariah I can understand that. For future reference you can buy topical antibiotics over the counter for cuts and burns and use that.

Not too long ago I nearly chopped the end of my middle finger off while cutting onions. I went to clinic to get stitches but didn’t want to wait 6 hours so I headed home. I joined the two parts of my fingers together with some steri-strips and put that OTC antibiotic cream on. I kept changing the the strips and re-applying the ointment with bandaging and 10 days later the cut was completely healed with no scabbing at all. With that process you just have to be diligent about changing the bandaging every day.

I hope you heal up soon and well.

@King_Pariah If the pus is clear it doesn’t sound like it was infected, but the antibiotic is for good measure most likely, preventative just in case. I wouldn’t have gone to the doctor initially either if I thought I could treat it on my own. But, I am glad you went once you became unsure of how the healing was progressing. Now it will probably heal up very quickly.

If ‘pus’ is clear, it isn’t pus. Pus is whitish-yellow usually, and a few other colours, depending, not clear. If it is clear, it’s lymph and is normal seeping for a burn. But it is good that you went and had it debrided. It will heal cleaner now. Keep it clean, stay hydrated and go’ bedring.

Update a day later, @King_Pariah?

@Jeruba yeah, nothing really bad apparently aside from dead tissue which was cut out with no sign of serious infection (doc did a quick look over, a quick little cut, and a quick little thing of antibiotics, voila)