How to treat a working man’s blister

Blisters pop up all over the place. You can get them walking, you can get them working, you can get them any old how… Matter of fact, I’ve got one now. If you find your hand blistered after a hard weekend working around the house, here’s how to deal with it.

First off, you want to clean up your hand. If you notice you’ve got a blister, it’s best to stop work and deal with it before it pops on its own, so take a break and go and clean up the blistered area.

If the blister hasn’t popped, you need to decide whether you can afford the time to stop work – blisters are one of the body’s way of healing, so a best case scenario is to leave the blister unpopped to heal while you rest up. But if that’s not an option – if you need to keep walking or working or whatever, it’s better to release the liquid inside and protect the skin than to let the blister pop while you work.

Get some rubbing alcohol or Dettol and rub the area clean (after you’ve washed it). Then get yourself a sewing needle and throw it in some boiling water for a few minutes. That will kill off any germs on the needle – it’s important you don’t use a cigarette lighter to sterilise the needle, as the flame is quite sooty and can end up infecting your blister.

Once you’ve sterilised the needle and let it cool slightly (so you don’t burn yourself), very carefully prick the top of the blister. Go in sideways so you don’t hurt the sensitive skin underneath. Once you’ve popped it, put the needle down and gently squeeze out the liquid from inside the blister.

Swab some Savlon cream or other protective cream onto the blister before covering with a gauze or bandage. Generally, you want to go with something a little bit more protective than a standard bandaid.

Once covered, you can go back to work. Just make sure you change the gauze every day to keep it clean. It’ll take about a week, but it should heal up nicely.

Image: Daniel Morris Flickr