Q: What are burns?
A. Burns are death and necrosis of a tissue due to heat. Burns may occur due to dry heat, (in form of fire) wet heat (in form of scalds) or electrical burns.

Q: What happens in a burn?
A: Heat damages the cells of the skin releasing chemicals that stimulate nerves and cause pain. Burn heals when a new layer of skin grows in from the edges of the burn. However, if the burn is very large or very deep, bacteria may invade and cause infection. Also due to evaporation of fluids from the open wound, the patients may get dehydrated. Hence the 2 major short term complications of burns are infection and dehydration. Long-term, during healing, the wound may start shrinking or becoming smaller leading to contractures. Contracted tissue may lead to a loss of normal motion if present in the limbs and can also cause a distorted appearance due to pull on the surrounding healthy tissue. In a burn patient, sensations of hot, cold, wetness, dryness, touch and pain may change even permanently . A patient post-burn will not to be able to sweat properly due to damaged sweat glands. Hence appropriate clothing as per the season is required (cotton in summer and warm clothing in winter)

Skin color is determined from the melanin and carotene pigments in the epidermis. Melanin protects the skin from sunburn. After a burn, the burnt skin may not be able to produce melanin, hence leading to sun burn. Also the skin may become lighter(depigmented or hypopigmented ) as compared to the normal skin or darker (hyperpigmented).