Severity of Burns & Skin Layers

The severity of burns is related to its depth more than the agent that causes the burn. Burns are classified by three, even four degrees that take into account the skin layers, muscles, and bones.


First Degree Burn
A first degree burn is limited to the epidermis. It is characterized by heat, pain, and moistening and reddening of the burned surface. It rarely shows blistering or charring of tissue. First degree burns often heal in three to seven days and seldom scar. Typical first degree burns include sunburn and minor scalds.


Second Degree Burn
Sometimes referred to as partial thickness burns, second degree burns are characterized as either "superficial" or "deep". Both types penetrate deeper than a first degree burn and destroy the epidermal layers, extending into the dermis layer. They can cause damage to sweat glands and hair follicles and are extremely painful. They often cause intense swelling and also produce blisters, severe pain, and redness. The skin can appear from blotchy white to cherry red.
Most superficial second degree burns heal in 10 to 21 days, but leave a change in skin color and pigmentation. A deep second degree burn can be ivory or pearly white in color and may require a process known as skin grafting treatment.

Skin Grafting Treatment

The deep second degree burn may require examination at a hospital or doctor's office, possibly as often as daily for the first few days.

With this type of burn, skin grafts may be needed. Most skin grafts replace the burned skin. Other skin grafts help by temporarily covering and protecting the skin as it heals on its own. In a skin grafting procedure, a piece of healthy skin is taken from an unburned area of the person's body (autograft), from another living or dead person (allograft), or from another species (xenograft)—usually pigs because their skin is most similar to human skin. The skin graft is surgically sewn over the burned area after removing any dead tissue and ensuring that the wound is clean. Autografts are permanent. Allografts and xenografts, however, are rejected after 10 to 14 days by the person's immune system. Artificial skin has been developed recently and can also be used to replace the burned skin. Burned skin can be replaced anytime within several days of the burn.


Third Degree
A third degree burn-also known as a full thickness burn-destroys all the epidermal and dermal skin layers. The tissue damage extends below hair follicles and sweat glands to subcutaneous (fat) tissue. With this degree of burn, the skin becomes charred and leathery and often appears depressed relative to surrounding tissue. The skin can be bright red, waxy white, tan, or brown; there are no blisters and third degree burns may cause massive swelling. Perhaps surprisingly, third degree burns are usually not painful because the injury has destroyed nerve endings.

When a burn injury is deep enough to involve muscle, bone, tendon, and/or ligament, it is sometimes classified as a fourth degree burn. These burns are often life threatening and may require amputation.

Burn Classification as an Injury

The size of the burn area also helps classify a burn as a minor or major injury. Doctors classify burns according to strict, widely accepted definitions. These definitions may not correspond to a person's understanding of those terms.

To determine the severity of a burn, doctors estimate what percentage of the body's surface has been burned. For adults, doctors use the rule of nines. This method divides almost all of the body into sections of 9% or of 2 times 9% (18%). For children, doctors use charts that adjust these percentages according to the child's age. Adjustment is needed because different areas of the body grow at different rates.
When tissue is burned, fluid leaks into them from the blood vessels, causing swelling and pain. In addition, damaged skin and other body surfaces are easily infected because they can no longer act as a barrier against invading organisms.

BIOSKINREPAIR ™ Treatment for Burns Scar

BIOSKINREPAIR ™ CREAM is natural product that can help your body repair damage due to skin burns.

Topical application of the cream on scars has shown to decrease dermal fibroblast proliferation, and prevent and reduce scars.

BIOSKINREPAIR ™ CREAM is anti-microbial and helps to prevent skin infections and minimize scars and even help with the interface of skin during the graft process. You can use it for treating a wide variety of skin problems: wounds, rashes, cracked, dry skin, keloids, acne scars, stretch marks, and many others. It works great on post-surgical scars. It has been used on age lines, age spots, abrasions, athlete's foot, boils, chilblains, diabetic sores, diaper rash, infected nails, insect bites/stings, skin allergies, and skin ulcers with incredible results. It is excellent for helping the skin to repair itself.  It heals wounds with minimal scarring while also shrinking old scars.