The most painful experience of my life!

[MauEvig]

I don't mean emotionally painful, but physical. Though it may be because I'm too sheltered; I don't know.
Last night I made some chili and got some free vegetables that I contributed to that chili. Among those were habanero peppers! As I was preparing them for my chili pot, and I didn't put too many in because I didn't want the chili to be too hot, my hands started to burn by the time I got to preparing the garlic. Then for the next nine hours I was in excruciating pain and I tried every home remedy I could possibly get ahold of here on the internet. I tried soaking my hands in milk, bleach, I tried rubbing alcohol, lotion, vegetable oil and nothing worked! My hands would not stop burning. Now even though I am an emotional person I'm usually not one to cry when it comes to a burn or scratch, and I havne't cried over a physical ailment like that since I was a child. But this hurt really bad! The only thing that would help was to numb the pain with some ice or some cold running water. My boyfriend tried looking up remedies for me, he called my dad and grandma and it was just a nightmare! At 2:00 in the morning my pain finally subsided and I'm able to use my hands again without them feeling like they're on fire. Every now and then I still get an annoying tingling sensation from it and a slight irritation, but nothing compared to the horror of last night. It was bad.

But hey the bright side of it was...the chili was delicious!

I learned a valuable lesson last night. The next time I handle these "inferno berries" I will wear gloves!

[Kolchak]

I don't know who told you to put bleach on a burn, but they were way off base. That was worse than bad. Never, ever put a corrosive like bleach on a burn. That's like pouring gasoline on fire.

If you know this reaction was due to you touching peppers you need to wear latex gloves the next time you do this.

You should have gone to the emergency room. If you don't want to go that route, use luke warm tap water on the burn. Pour some cold milk REGULAR milk on it. Better yet soak your hand in it. You could also take luke warm water and pour a large amount of baking soda in it and make like a paste from it and put it on the burn.

If you have regular vinegar around the house that will also work very well. You would pour it over the burn.Vinegar is an old Florida and Caribbean trick for sun burn and sea urchin stings. It really does work because I've used it myself.

NEVER! NEVER! EVER! put bleach on your body for any reason. You're lucky it did not scar your hand from the burn.

[MauEvig]

Well Kolchak I try to avoid going to the Emergincy room because I know they're going to charge a fortune just to look at me, especially if the solution would have been to simply wait it out. I'm supposed to have insurance through the "Obama Care" plan, but they don't cover anything until you reach a cap. I don't have $500 to my name right now and that is how much it would have cost me to go there I'm sure of it. If it was still burning really bad today, then I probably would have gone.

Well, several google searches on different sites suggested using bleach like this one:

http://www.thekitchn.com/the-best-remed ... chn-208527

Of course when my hands are inflamed like that I'm not going to be thinking very logical. Everything's fine now, the burning's stopped so there's nothing to worry about. Honestly I didn't think it was going to burn that bad, at least until I got to the garlic. But like I said, I will definitively wear gloves next time. I also didn't have any vinegar around, or aloe or lime/lemon juice though now I think they'd be useful to have. But I'm going to make sure there isn't a repeat because that was just excruciatingly painful.

[Murfreesboro]

I'm actually relieved to hear this was a physical problem, because when I first clicked on your topic I was afraid something bad had happened in your family connection somehow.

I dislike strong peppers, so I steer way clear of the habaneros, but I'm glad to hear that your chili was good, at least.

Girl, you need to stock up on vinegar of all kinds! That is the best stuff ever, for almost anything. You can clean the universe with white vinegar (they even make one that is "cleaning strength"), and apple cider vinegar is like the healthiest thing in the world to eat.

I can empathize with your desire to steer clear of the ER. Last December, our daughter fell asleep on her laptop computer and burned her wrist. None of us knew what it was (didn't think of the laptop), so we headed to the ER, thinking she'd been bitten by a brown recluse (the welt was nasty and seemed to be getting worse as we looked at it). The ER was very reassuring and gave her some minimal treatment for a burn, ointment or something. But six weeks later we got the bill. I don't recall exactly how much it was, but I know it was between one & two thousand dollars! We were there for maybe an hour around 3:30 in the morning; there had been no one else in the ER at the time. And because it was December, we were in the "doughnut hole" in our insurance. We had to pay every dollar of that ourselves.

[MauEvig]

Everything's fine in my family thankfully.

I guess we were just feeling a bit daring. The chili was great and even better the next day, as it often is. But I will admit this was definitely a learning experience for me! Perhaps we should invest in some vinegar anyway, I imagine that it does come in handy!

Ouch! That stinks that it cost so much for such a simple treatment. I remember going to the ER for what turned out to be a sinus infection back when I still lived up North. Something that I didn't think was that big of a deal. Thankfully the hospital was able to work with me I think to make payments, or at least I had insurance to cover it at the time. I can't remember which. I really don't think that's right to make you pay so much for that honestly. I don't know what the hospital is like here, but I heard it's one of those "band=aide" hospitals. Their credentials don't sound all that convincing, but I suppose being in such a small area we should be fortunate to have a hospital at all.

A long time ago there used to be an urgent care facility there. They would be open at the odd hours but serve more like a doctor's office. After it closed down at the hospital people just had to go to the ER instead. It feels like a farce and an excuse to collect more money for the same treatments! I hate to turn this into a political discussion, but I really hate how they've done this stuff with Healthcare. One can't always avoid getting sick or injured, but they have certainly not solved any of the problems involved with the healthcare system. The decision to force everyone to buy a healthcare plan in my opinion has only made things worse. Certainly there has to be other ways. When I first moved down here, they had a low cost clinic I could go to. That was good enough for me. Just $10 to see a doctor or at least a nurse practitioner. I had to cover my own medicine, but that wasn't too bad. I'd really hate to suffer a serious injury that would involve me staying at the hospital. The worst part is when you are a sub, you don't get the same insurance benefits that a full time teacher would get.

[Murfreesboro]

I'm not an authority, but I think what happens with the ER is that people who have insurance end up paying a whole bunch more to cover those who don't have it. Of course, I don't know what that means, now that everyone is supposed to have it!

I know you don't want to get full-on political in this thread. I have always believed that the push to get universal health care was more about controlling the population than about making health care more accessible or affordable. In my experience, nothing the government does is ever cheaper than what private industry can do.

[MauEvig]

I agree Murf. They haven't made healthcare more affordable or accessible, and of course controlling the population is exactly what the government is trying to do.

Yeah it's really not fair to everyone though having people with insurance pay it. I think the Government supposedly made exceptions...but still. Unfortunately Virginia is one of the states that chose not to extend medicaid coverage.

[Kolchak]

Mau the article says to dip your fingers in a heavily watered down version of bleach WHILE you are chopping peppers. It does not say to use the bleach as an after accident treatment. The bleach as put in the article is a preventative and not a treatment to use after the fact. So what I said stands. NEVER put bleach on your hands for any reason, and if you get some on you, wash it off immediately.

[witchy]

That sounds awful, I've never heard of anyone having that kind of reaction before, scary!!