/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>363412
You are going to die, sorry.

See someone if it gets worse.
Consider other herbal treatments.

>>363414
You very funny, I kill you last.

>>363418
Planning on it. It's been at least an hour since it thawed back out, and it doesn't hurt, but it's not numb, either, just pink.
On hand I've got moisturizers, I have Bag Balm, I have Neosporin. Any of these sound like a good idea to put on it?

Alright, you are pretty good since you have no numbness left, and no blistering. It is going to take a while for the skin to heal. Try to avoid taking any stimulants for a while, including caffeine, and DONT get hot water or heat pads or anything on it for a while, just keep it warm and dry and covered. After a few days it should be mostly better, but can take months to completely heal. You can start using Vitamin E on it in a few days.

i would recommend fapping with the homemade ice pack

Looks like you chapped your ass. A little Bag Balm would be a good idea, as it's meant specifically to remedy that. It's basically the same as if you went outside in a blizzard for a few hours. You'd get that same kind of redness on your face or hands, and would treat it the same way. You'll be okay.

>>363412
Don't do anything that will cause a drastic change in temperature of the tissue so no hotpacks or coldpacks for at least 3 days. Showers are fine (no baths), however stay away from abrasive soaps and washes. Essentially, what you want to do, is baby that area for 3 days.

I'm not sure why the isopropanol/water mix had such a drastic effect as that's what I use for knee pain (chondromalaciafag). Plus it sounds like you've used that before. Are you sure it's not a reaction with something that was on your tissue previously to applying the cold? Symptoms do point to very mild frostbite though as you said.

Seeing that you have already regained feeling in the area, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If the area starts to get streaky red marks, ooze pus, or show other signs of infection, go make an appointment with your GP.

Typically a good icing regiment is 15 minutes on then 15 minutes off.


General reminder to all anons to stay away from WebMD or other related sites. A great deal of time those sites get things very wrong and cause patients to go to the doctor and say things like "I have Disease X and I need Drug Y. Prescribe it now." This just irritates the docs. They went through 8 to 16 extra years of postgrad for a reason. Let them do their jobs.

Why on earth would you put an ice pack directly on your skin, it's literally the first thing it tells you not to do. Let me guess next your going to tell us you tried drinking from the pack.

>>363533
It was actually the first time I tried to use the home-made icepack, and since I was using a commerical icepack taken from the same freezer at the same exact time, I had NO expectation that it'd work differently, at ALL.

I do use ~15min per icing when I use an icepack. That's about as long as these were on. What still surprises me is that I didn't feel *anything* different between the two packs while I was using them, which just magnified my surprise to find that patch of skin on my butt had frozen over parchment-white like that; I was rather shocked!

>>363535
I've always put them directly on my skin because otherwise they don't seem to get the area in question cold enough, I've been doing it that way for years, and I have NEVER had a problem like this until today; I had NO expectation that there would have been a problem.

You don't drink isopropanol unless you want to go blind, get sicker than shit, and maybe die. I don't know anybody who is that dumb.

>>363535
Derp. Yes OP this is good advice too. Put a towel/shirt/pants between you and the pack too.

>>363556
*shrug* like I said it's never been a problem the 1000 times before. I'm still trying to figure out how two icepacks from the same freezer taken and used at the same time can be so totally different.

>>363554
In order to freeze something, you have to place it in an environment colder than the freezing point. Seems trivial but a lot of people don't realize this.

The commercial ice pack is made out of a different chemical with different thermal properties than isopropanol/water. Seeing from what happened, the commercial pack probably had either a lower specific heat meaning it can't sink as much heat from the surrounding material, or was able to sink the heat away slower than the isopropanol mix.

Chances are it was both, meaning the skin near the /diy/ version had more heat taken away from it, faster.

There is a more technical calculus/thermo/heat x-fer based explanation, but /diy/ isn't capable of rendering formulas like /sci/ etc. Plus I don't think it's necessary haha

>>363556
BTW I appreciate the advice. Really, I'm not dumb, if anything I'm too smart for my own damned good sometimes. This started out just because I could use more reusable icepacks around but don't really want to take the time and money to go get decent ones if I can manufacture them myself. Guess it worked TOO well. :p

>>363561
Since isopropanol has a melting point of -128F, and it's used as an antifreeze in some applications, it's not a totally outrageous idea that it'd get closer to the freezer temperature than something else might, but never having stuck a thermocouple into the other icepack before I had NO idea. I think I'll look for a better mixture to use instead of water and alcohol.

>>363561
The term you were looking for is thermal conductivity. Heat capacity and thermal conductivity aren't directly related. Commercially-produced ice packs usually have some sort of food-grade polymer in them, specifically to prevent this sort of thing, and to make them less leaky. That, or they're covered in thick plastic to slow the transfer of heat.

It's definitely ill-advised to make your own icepack this way, unless you're aware of the damage you can do to yourself.

>>363564
*shrug* I am now. :p

As I said above: I'd still like to make my own rather than pay the exhorbitant amount of money they charge for decent ones, but I think I need a better recipe for the contents.

On the other hand, I think ice-packs of this sort would work excellently for fast-cooling things like beer and other drinks. A tub of it in my freezer, for example, with a beer dunked in it for just a few minutes. Probably not a glass bottle, though, wouldn't want it to shatter from the temperature differential, but anything in a plastic bottle or aluminum can.

Good homemade packs are a 70/30 of water and Dawn dish soap. I used to work at a daycare, and we made little "boo boo bags" of this mixture for when the kids bumped a noggin or scraped a knee. You can add a tiny bit of alcohol (maybe a capful) to help it last longer.

I also use this mixture when sending baked goods to relatives via UPS. The things arrive no longer frozen, and the packs melted, but everything is still pretty chilly. Give it a shot, anon.

>>363569
That sounds reasonable, and any dish detergent should work (like the stuff I get from Costco in a huge bottle for cheap). I'll set up a bag of that in the freezer to try; thanks for the tip.

>>363565
Both ice packs had reached the same temperature in your freezer. Water has a very high specific heat. Odds are, anything you pollute it with will have a lower one. I'm willing to bet (but not willing to google) that water has a higher thermal conductivity than water & isopropanol. I already know that isopropanol has a lower specific heat than water, so you'd be worse off than just using crushed ice to cool your drinks.

If you want to cool beer extremely fast, buy a plain bag of ice and a package of salt. Dump some water and in a cooler, dissolve the salt, then add the ice. Beer is cold in ~2-5min.

For a commercial-style icepack, I'd use a salt & water solution mixed with something to thicken it, like guar gum or xantham gum, etc. If you use guar gum you can add a little borax to make an actual gel.