Monday, August 20, 2007

Miracle Burn Cure

Pretty Lady just has to share this with you.

Yesterday, she took it into her head to try the recipe for Italian Peasant Bread, provided by a lovely rural lady who had her to dinner last week. It all went swimmingly, until Pretty Lady thoughtlessly grabbed the lid to the Dutch oven, carefully pre-heated to 450 degrees as per the recipe, with her bare hand.

Her Gentleman Friend, studying in the next room, heard the scream.

Pretty Lady, of course, is not a Wimp or a Whiner, no sirree. But her livelihood depends upon having a set of hands which are intact, capable, and free of running sores. A 450-degree-pot-lid burn upon her index finger and thumb is not a Good Thing, in Pretty Lady's precarious existence.

Fortunately, while running her injured hand under the tap, she remembered the incident of her 10th birthday party, wherein her beloved little sister leaned up against the barbeque and took the skin off her forearm. She commanded her Gentleman Friend, "Fetch me an egg white."

For the next few hours, Pretty Lady soaked her hand in raw organic egg whites, withdrawing it occasionally to wave it around and blow on it, forming an airtight skin of dried egg white over the throbbing weal.

And lo, by the time she and her Gentleman friend departed to view the new Harry Potter movie in IMax 3-D, there was no more throbbing weal; no blister, no redness, no pain, no peeling. Pretty Lady is competent to resume work this morning.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank God.

k said...

Holy smokes.

What a close call. And what a fine cure.

Burns are a serious issue with me. MRSA loves them. LOVES them.

Worse yet, at home I tend to cook unclothed.

The egg white treatment is now committed to my memory forever.

Anonymous said...

Never knew of that one. Great tip - thanks.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm simple in the head. Can you explain to me WHY sealing the burn from air in that way, though I assume not insulating its heat, was a cure? Or is there some ingredient in egg white that does the trick? What, what? I simply must understand this. :)

Pretty Lady said...

No, Anon, you're not simple in the head--of all the medical websites I looked at, not a single one of them told me what I vaguely remember from the explanation given me by an all-knowing Mommy, long long ago. So please bear in mind that this explanation has NOT been verified by an expert, and may very well be a load of hogwash.

This explanation is that the body's natural response to injury is inflammation--it sends more fluids to the area, and raises the temperature, so that the body has more energy and supplies to regenerate itself.

Unfortunately, in the case of burns, this process seems to exacerbate the original injury, presumably by continuing to 'cook' the already traumatized tissue. Keeping the temperature down (running the burn under cool water ASAP) and sealing off air (oxygen for 'oxidation,' I assume) are the best ways to head off the process.

The trick, I believe, is to convince your immune system that nothing has gone wrong that it can't handle with normal, day-by-day cell regeneration processes. Sealing off the air does what an ordinary covering of healthy skin does, and keeps out germs.

In fact, come to think, egg whites are simply organic protein, so the body might just grab them and thunk them into place to heal the breach. Also, the fact that the eggs had just been in the refrigerator did a lot to cool things down.

Nancy said...

yah, I was thinking of the proteins too....

I wonder if they do contribute?

Anonymous said...

Very interesting, thanks! And I am going to keep this remedy in mind too. :)