What degree burn did I get?

Question

A few years ago, I was in Europe at my grandmother's house when she was making tea. She had boiled water for the  tea and put the kettle on the stone floor so that it would cool off. I don't know how long it had been sitting there when I tripped over the kettle, but very, very hot water spilled all over my foot. 
It was so painful at first I didn't even feel anything, but just a little bit later I was in extreme pain. I rushed to the bathtub in a nearby bathroom and blasted my toe with cold water.

For the next few days, unless my foot was deeply immersed in cold water, my entire foot would be in an  unbearable, sharp pain (and I have relatively high pain tolerance). It took maybe a month for it to fully heal, I don't quite remember. I do remember however that colour of my foot was unusual. It was a kind of white/gray. I remember a very long time after the event took place one day, a huge mass of skin just like... fell off. It was so scary. It was just like a huge glob of skin just like slipped off. It was horrifying to see the burn was so bad that it would have such an effect.

I cannot remember if I had blisters.

OutThere · Accepted Answer

Burns can be 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th degree and can very in intensity within a catagory. A 1st degree burn is like a sunburn, the skin turns red and gets quite painful, sometimes peeling but there is no blistering and no permanent damage aas only the outer layer of skin is affected. A 2nd degree burn can blister but not always, these burn look "wet" and can take a few weeks to heal. They often peel and sometimes leave minimal scarring. This is the kind of burn you have. Despite all factors the water temp cannot be hotter then 100C (212F) otherwise it would turn to steam.

3rd and 4th degree burns are the most serious types. 3rd degree burns go throughout the entire skins and cause no pain, because the nerves are burned off. 4th degree burns are often considered to be just bad 3rd degree burns but are used to distinguish burns that go into muscle and bone. These occur from very dangerous situations (large fires, automotive accidents, arc flashes, etc.) and require immediate medical treatment.

If you get another 1st or 2nd degree burn the thing to remember is immersion in cool water for 20+ minutes, even when the source of heat is removed your skin can continue to "cook" from the absorbed heat, you want to give the heat somewhere else to go.

Brenda Morris · Answer

You suffered a 2nd degree burn.  The skin sluffed off after the blistering.  You do not have any scarring.

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What degree burn did I get?

2 Answers