Monday, April 13, 2009

A burn at the kiln

Several years ago Mark and I read about putting soy sauce on burns. We have used this for several minor kitchen burns and once when I was helping a group.
I burned myself by picking up a pitcher, by the handle, which was straight out of the kiln and about 300 degrees.
So last night as Mark was checking the kiln his ungloved hand was exposed to flame which shot out of the kiln catching the tips of his fingers. He immediately ran to the house for the soy sauce. He put some in a plastic container and put his fingers in. Then we put in ice.
I went out with him to help shut the kiln down.
We then made the decision of if he should go to the emergency room. We decided to keep it on ice and soy sauce.
What looked like it could be a rather bad burn with blisters on the tips of the fingers, turned into just raised white spots. Two of the fingers you can not tell. The other two and mostly the pinkie are white looking but no blisters.
This has worked for us twice.
Soy Sauce- maybe it works because of the salt factor- who knows but it has worked for us.
Note Mark has fired this kiln since 1986 this is the first burn- pretty good I think!

8 comments:

MH said...

OK - it was a bonehead thing where my brain was not involved at all - BUT the soy sauce thing DOES WORK. I do have blisters on my fingers but they would be much worse and painful had I not done the ice thing with soy sauce. Followed that up with the more standard aloe vera gel once the pain subsided a bit three hours later and was able to sleep.

Anonymous said...

i've never heard of that before... have to keep it mind

Gary's third pottery blog said...

OH HORRORS! Man, the hazards of the pottery life, eek!

cindy shake said...

I've had a couple of burns in the shop from welding. Once making a "quick" spot repair on a sculpture, hot slag dripped down through my garden clog (it was supposed to be just a quick weld, so why bother with shop boots -right?!), through my sock and into the top of my foot... I'm adding SOY SAUCE to the shop med box! Maybe I'll even put some in a atomizer! thanks for the tip :o)

Annapants! said...

I *know* this works! I managed almost 2nd degree burns about two years ago. I had just read about this method online and used a whole bottle!

Still had horrible blisters and scaring but I know this helped take a lot of the pain out of what could have been a much worse experience.

Hope Dad heals up quickly!

Linda Starr said...

Ouch, hope Mark heals quickly. I burned my hand on the stove top metal grate and put ice on it for three hours till it stopped burning, but kilns are much hotter than that.

Tracey Broome said...

Glad to hear the soy sauce cure. I am forever burning myself cooking. I've just used ice and aloe but it still hurts for soooo long. Every time I get a stove burn I think of the poor people that suffer from very serious burns and how painful that must be for them. I whine forever when I get burned! Feel better!

cookingwithgas said...

The fingers are in good shape thanks to the soy sauce!