What to Know About Pain Management After a Burn Injury

Whether you are a burn survivor or care for someone who has been impacted by a burn injury, burn pain management is sure to be at the top of your mind. Knowing how to describe the pain and understanding pain levels is critical to getting needed help.

Managing burn pain and coping with the pain and physical changes brought on by the burn injury is also crucial, especially in the early stages of recovery. Remember that a burn injury can affect multiple areas of your life, including work or school, sleep, overall mood, and general quality of life. If you struggle with managing burn pain, it can prevent you from eating and exercising as you normally would as well.  

Pain Management in Burn Patients: Describing Your Pain to Doctors and Caregivers 

It can feel frustrating when asked to describe your type of pain, but your description really does make a difference in what your care team can do to help you. Below are five ways to describe the pain you feel from your burn injury to ensure you receive the right medication and other types of treatment.   

• Acute: Most burn patients experience acute pain, which is typically short and intense, during activities like physical therapy or changing wound dressings.  

• Breakthrough: This type of burn injury pain comes and goes throughout the day, typically due to muscle tightening, repositioning, or normal wound healing. 

• Chronic: Pain that lasts for six months or longer after the original burn injury is chronic pain. 

• Neuropathic: When nerve endings that were previously burned start to grow back, you will experience neuropathic pain. 

• Resting: You feel this type of pain in the background of other bodily sensations, and it’s nearly always present. 

As someone with a burn injury, you may experience more than one of these types of pain at the same time.  

How to Describe Your Burn Pain 

You are probably familiar with the pain scale already, where a doctor or other medical provider asks you to rate your pain from 0, which is no pain at all, to 10, which is the worst pain you have ever experienced. Here are some other helpful ways to convey your pain level to your care team: 

• Duration: How long has the most recent burn pain lasted? 

• Impact: Is the pain making it difficult to do everyday tasks, such as getting dressed and eating breakfast? 

• Itching: Does your skin feel itchy besides being in pain? Itching skin means your wound is still healing, and your care team needs to know that. It could also indicate you have developed neuropathy, or a previous case of neuropathy has worsened. 

• Quality: What words would you use to describe your burn pain? Some common examples include aching, stinging, throbbing, shooting pain, and itching.  

• Timing: Do you feel discomfort at certain times of the day more often than others? 

Always be honest with your care providers about how you feel. You also want to include other information that can help, such as whether you feel depressed or anxious, how well you are sleeping and medications you have used to treat your burn pain in the past.

How to Manage Burn Pain 

Preventing infection is extremely important for burn patients. When family and friends visit you, please ask them to wash their hands with soap and warm water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. The specific type of medicine you use for your burn depends on its degree and location in your body. For example, lotion or moisturizing cream is usually adequate for people with first-degree burns. Second-degree and third-degree burns require antibiotic medication.

Your care team will also wrap your burn in special bandages known as dressing that help to keep the burn clean and prevent further injury. Certain deep second-degree and third-degree burns require surgery to remove dead skin and allow the remaining skin to heal.  

While the type of treatment you receive depends on your burn severity, location, and general health history, you have the power to make treatment faster and more efficient. Never skip your follow-up visits, especially if you’re concerned that your wound may have become infected. We recommend coming prepared with a list of questions for every follow-up appointment, such as the best ways to keep your skin moisturized and when you can go back to specific leisure activities.

How to Cope with Burn Pain 

Talking with other burn injury survivors regularly can help you manage day-to-day challenges while feeling like someone else understands what you’re experiencing. Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors strongly recommends joining an online or in-person support group if you’re not already in one.