Critical Medicine and Treatment

Posts Tagged ‘frostbite’

To treat mild frostbite or freezing, gently blow air into the frozen area or place in another area of the body with higher temperature. For example, place your fingers under your armpit or your palms on your ears, or put your fingers in the hands of another person.

If you experience severe frostbite, consult a doctor or go to an emergency department immediately. If this is not possible, begin warming the body part before seeing a doctor. However, it is best to warm frostbitten areas under medical supervision to minimize tissue damage. Furthermore, since the frozen area may be painful as it thaws, you may receive painkillers to reduce discomfort in your doctor or a hospital.

If a person with body temperature freezer has a lower than normal (hypothermia), frostbite can be treated safely once it has restored the core body temperature. This is usually done by removing wet clothing and cover the person with warm blankets, but may need urgent medical care. The frozen parts could be placed in water at a temperature between 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) and 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 degrees Celsius) for 15 to 30 minutes. The area has thawed when reset the color and skin sensitivity and feel normal. Read the rest of this entry »

Duration

There may be no permanent tissue damage in mild cases of frostbite. More severe cases may require amputation freezing. Each case of freezing is slightly different from another.

Prevention

The easiest way to prevent freezing is to avoid exposure to cold.

If you need to be exposed to cold temperatures, can be protected in several ways:

- Wear loose layers: the outer layer should be wind resistant to reduce heat loss, the inner layers of silk, wool or polypropylene will keep you warmer than cotton. Read the rest of this entry »

Symptoms

In the freezing, the skin may feel numb or normal is waxy white or lighter than normal. The freezing is common in the fingers, earlobes, cheeks and fingers. When body temperature recovery after freezing, the skin may become red.

In mild frostbite, the tissue is numb and feels smooth. It looks lighter than normal, or even white and may also have blisters. As the freezing progresses or after the skin regains some temperature, it could be more pink or red than normal.

In deep frostbite, the skin is numbed and feels hard, like wood, as well as being pale or white. At this point, the muscles and bones could be frozen. In more severe cases of frostbite, the skin may turn blue, gray or even black due to tissue injury. These changes sometimes do not happen until after the area recovered some temperature. Read the rest of this entry »

Frostbite occurs when body tissues (skin, muscle, bone) reaches such a low temperature to congeal. Less than 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius), blood vessels near the skin begin to contract. This helps to preserve core body temperature. In extremely cold temperatures or when the body is exposed to prolonged periods of cold, this protective strategy can reduce blood flow to dangerously low levels in some areas of the body.

The combination of low temperature and poor blood flow can cause tissue damage. The most probable that the freeze happens in parts of the body far away from the heart and most of the surface exposed to cold. These areas include the toes and fingers, ears and nose.

Body tissues are not frozen until the outside temperature is 28 degrees Fahrenheit (-2.22 Celsius). If tissue areas exposed to extreme cold start to freeze, ice crystals form in some cells and fluids do not flow through these cells. This can cause the cells to burst. Further damage can occur when the tissue is heated again, because the blood vessel damage can filter fluids and proteins into tissues and cause swelling (inflammation) and blisters. Read the rest of this entry »