Damaging Chemical Burns from Tea Tree Oil, What Now?

[Visiter]

I have been using tea tree oil for a few years now for its anti-bacterial properties and have never had a problem with it so far.

UNTIL

I dabbed a bit over a cut on my upper thigh, and covered with gauze overnight. I awoke to see my skin had turned a dark purple/blackish colour in a perfectly square shape of the piece of gauze I had on, which absorbed the tea tree oil and spread it. A few days later, the skin peeled off, and now I am left with a weeping, open abrasion the size of a dollar...I have discontinued use, although previously diluted tea tree oil has always worked for me, until it basically melted this patch of skin out of the blue.

Is there a way to speed the healing/avoid scarring in open wounds of this nature? Has anyone experienced similar experiences with tea tree oil or chemical burns?

 

[kind2creatures]

I don't use tea tree oil very often, but I have in the past without any problems. If it were me, after rinsing it thoroughly, I'd apply either natural vitamin E, you can squeeze it out of a softgel....or extra virgin coconut oil, both of these should soothe and help heal.

 

[Arrowwind09]

I would apply a compress of comfrey and yarrow leaves over night. Make a tea, steep 3 minutes, drink it and apply the tea leaves in a compress secured with gauze.

 

[mommysunshine]

I would suspect the gauze having chemicals that reacted to the oil. Have you used the gauze in the past with the oil without any problems?

 

[Visiter]

I have used that sort of gauze before, but I am thinking that perhaps the area of skin I applied it to may be more sensitive? I always used the same dilution and was my go-to for minor injuries, etc. Could different areas react so differently as to cause THAT extent of damage, yet work fine on other places?

 

[saved1986]

tea tree oil is strong, by covering it with gauge, you effectively made it a high concentration for a long time.

 

[kind2creatures]

Could different areas react so differently as to cause THAT extent of damage, yet work fine on other places?

I think some areas of our body are definitely more sensitive. If it is high up on the thigh, that skin may also be warmer temperature wise, just like under the arm, etc. That may intensify the tea tree.

 

[Visiter]

The wound so far has not been infected, yet it is far from healed. Is it normal for open wounds to have a 'whitish' background to them where the skin was burned away, during a healthy healing process?

Any tips on where to go from here to avoid scarring form this chemical burn?

 

[pinballdoctor]

The wound so far has not been infected, yet it is far from healed. Is it normal for open wounds to have a 'whitish' background to them where the skin was burned away, during a healthy healing process?

Any tips on where to go from here to avoid scarring form this chemical burn?

Colloidal silver prevents infection and helps heal without scarring. (that is why it is used in burn units)

 

[Visiter]

Update:

So i have seen the doctor, and they claim that the wound is NOT infected, yet there is still near-constant weeping of clear fluid from the wound. It is still not painful, yet it has been nearly a week with next to no reduction in wound-size. It 'looks' like there may be improvement, as it is turning more whitish than pinkish, although only slightly. Despite the change in colour, the weeping has not slowed, and I will be seeing my family doctor at the end of the holidays if there is no improvement.

Also, the doctor did swabs for infections that came back negative from a few days ago, so why the difficulty in healing? Young 20 year old male for more info...

 

[camjeff]

tea tree oil chemical burn on temple

Update:

So i have seen the doctor, and they claim that the wound is NOT infected, yet there is still near-constant weeping of clear fluid from the wound. It is still not painful, yet it has been nearly a week with next to no reduction in wound-size. It 'looks' like there may be improvement, as it is turning more whitish than pinkish, although only slightly. Despite the change in colour, the weeping has not slowed, and I will be seeing my family doctor at the end of the holidays if there is no improvement.

Also, the doctor did swabs for infections that came back negative from a few days ago, so why the difficulty in healing? Young 20 year old male for more info...

I know it has been about 10 months since this thread, but I wanted to see how long it ended up taking for your tea tree oil chemical burn to heal up?
The reason I am asking is that I had a little milia (a small white build up of keratin) on my temple and even though it was only the size of a pin head, I was really tired of looking at it and feeling it when I rubbed my temple- So, I saw some instructions online for removing the little hard white pimple looking growth. By putting a sterilized pin in it to break the skin and then pressing on the skin around the milia to get it to poke out from the skin enough to grab it with tweezers, and pull it out. Well, it broke off when I grabbed it with the tweezers, leaving the seed of the milia still intact under the skin surface. So, rather than leave it to possibly grow bigger (been there done that with another milia- will explain shortly), I decided to kill it with tea tree oil. I had one recently that I had scratched the portion above skin off and it turned into a full blown seborrheic keratosis the size of a pencil eraser literally within 2 weeks (which is of course also a build up of keratin- but much much bigger than the milia), that I successfully dried up with tea tree oil and then tied dental floss around tightly until it fell off leaving a small round scar, but much better than the pencil eraser sized growth. Well, unfortunately, even though the tea tree oil worked in drying out the big keratosis, it didn't with the little milia. It made it turn really red and inflammed, so I washed the tea tree oil off and after a few hours, seeing that it looked infected, I put peroxide on it to kill the germs. Well, apparantly the tea tree oil had gotton into the little hole of broken skin and wasn't rinsed off earlier because when the peroxide also got into the little hole, it bubbled up into an instant white blister on my skin. I guess the tea tree oil and peroxide together caused a chemical burn. The blister peeled off the next day, but the open burn it left behind is just not healing up. I have put manuka honey on it (which I have used to heal 2nd degree burns up in 5 days before) and that didn't phase it. I have put silver ointment on it, made it worse. Triple antibiotic ointment- stuck to the gauze and caused it to bleed. The burn is the size of a dime and just not getting better. It just stays raw and bleeds if I put anything on it...

Any suggestions or comments- I welcome happily. I just don't know what to do. Should I try the Manuka honey again??