Why does a burn still feel hot even after running it under cold water?
In: Biology
The damaged area is more sensitive, meaning nerves are firing off more signals with less stimulus required, and the area is inflamed meaning the body saturated the area with blood to jumpstart the healing process.
Lots of warm blood+ extra heat sensitive nerves = constant signals that the area is hot.
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Heat is the transference of energy. Basically your skin absorbs the heat. The cool water helps the heat leave the skin. That’s why you should keep running it under cool water (not very cold) until it doesn’t feel hot anymore, because most of the energy will have left.
Depending on the severity of the burn the energy could have gone down to the lower layers of the skin. So if it happened recently and it’s still “burning” put it under water again, for up to 15 minutes.
The person who said the sensitive nerve thing is only correct after the heat has initially dissipated. But if the area is constantly hot seek medical attention (I’m a healthcare worker-not a doctor or RN) because the area may be infected.
Don’t put ice on it, you can harm the surrounding skin more.
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The nerves have already been damaged from the heat. The sensation is the damaged nerve firing uncontrollable constant signals to the brain. Not unlike a skipping record.
When you can’t feel the heat and pain is when you need to be really concerned.
When you have a burn bad enough and there is no pain is time to go to the hospital.
Ironically, the more pain you are in, the less severe(typically) the burn is.
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Speaking from personal experience. Like previous commenters said the nerves are on fire and the cold water stops the burning but ALSO it helps to lessen the intense pain by deadening the sensation. I once had a burn from high school chemistry class, heat not chemical, on all four fingers of my right hand. School nurse gave me an ice pack to keep on it. I had to go home because I literally could not function even after an hour with the ice pack. Once home I sat with my hand in a small cooler filled with ice water for about an hour. Every time I took my hand out the same intense throbbing pain came back. Finally I made the choice of this is my life now vs fuck it let’s see what happens. I took my hand out and focused on the pain to see how long it would last. It started to hurt less and less and after a few minutes it was much much better so I proceeded to enjoy some daytime TV and video games. My suspicion is that I was delaying the natural response of my body’s nervous system that allows the brain to ignore constant signals and once I stopped trying to focus on stopping the pain and just feel it while distracting myself, my body did its thing and started healing and coping.
The nerves that sense “heat” are still screaming after being hurt. The nerves that sense the cold in the cold water also yell when the cold water touches them. When the cold nerves stop yelling, the heat nerves are still screaming and win the yelling match
the short answer is that your skin receives a lot more blood when damaged, and the extra blood makes it hotter.
the answers more complicated than that and has more factors, but thats a big part of it and the easiest to explain
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