Burn Injuries Doctor Questions and Answers

If you are ever concerned about a burn you have sustained, you should always feel free to see a doctor for expert medical attention! Our board-certified physicians at Reddy Urgent Care would be happy to evaluate your burn and provide any necessary treatment. In general, you should seek urgent medical attention for any burn that exhibits the following symptoms:

• Any burn that covers the buttocks, face, feet, groin, hands, major joint, or any large area of the body
• Burns that affect all layers of the skin or deeper tissues
• Burns that give your skin a leathery appearance
• Charred skin or patches of black, brown, or white skin
• Increased pain, redness, and swelling
• Large burn or blister that has not healed in two weeks
• Oozing from the wound

An urgent care clinic such as Reddy Urgent Care can take exceptional medical care of any 1st or 2nd-degree burn. However, you should go to the emergency room for any burn more severe than that to receive adequate medical attention. If you are unsure which facility you should visit for your burn, consider whether or not it is life-threatening, in which case you should go to your nearest emergency room immediately. If you are still unsure, please call us, and our medical professionals and assistants can direct you to where you need to go.

There are four different types of burns, as well as four different degrees of burns. The four different types are as follows:

• Chemical burns: also referred to as caustic burns, chemical burns occur when your skin or other tissue is exposed to corrosive substances, such as strong acids or bases, drain cleaners, car battery acid, and other such substances.
• Electrical burns: these burns result from a burst of electricity that passes through your body and can occur when one is struck by lightning, through accidental contact with exposed wiring, or touching a live wire.
• Radiation burns: when your skin is exposed to radiation or ultraviolet rays for too long, radiation burns occur. Examples of radiation burns are sunburns, burns from too much exposure to X-ray imaging, radiotherapy, or other radiation sources.
• Thermal burns: these burns occur when your skin or other tissue comes in contact with a heat source that raises the skin’s temperature to the extent that causes cell death and even charring. Examples include any time you touch a hot surface, liquid, or flame.

The four different degrees of burns and their characteristics are as follows:

• 1^st degree: surface-level burns that cause dry skin, redness, pain for two to three days, and peeling skin. A sunburn is a prime example of a 1st-degree burn.
• 2^nd degree: burns that go past the epidermis and into part of the dermis with symptoms, including blisters, deep redness, skin that appears wet or shiny and is painful to touch, and areas that could be white or discolored in a random pattern.
• 3^rd degree: burns that affect all of the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin and cause symptoms such as black, brown, yellow, or white skin that may appear dry and leathery, swelling, and lack of pain due to the destruction of nerve endings.
• 4^th degree: burns that go through the skin layers to the underlying layers of tissue that could involve muscle, bone, tendons, and ligaments. The skin looks charred with the potential for a bone exposed.

Burns can be excruciating! Especially when they reach the threshold of nerve ending destruction but do not quite go past it. As such, second- and third-degree burns are often the most painful to experience. When the nerves are destroyed from a burn, the feeling in the injury area is gone, which completely diminishes the pain. However, such situations are often life-threatening medical emergencies. Therefore, if you have ceased to feel any pain from your burn, you should immediately go to your nearest emergency room.

For the treatment of any 1st or 2nd-degree burn, we welcome you to come to Reddy Urgent Care for a walk-in appointment! You can find our clinic in the Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach, CA, at 423 Atlantic Ave. Reddy Urgent Care is open seven days a week, from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM from Monday to Friday or from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM on weekends.