After the strange episode of waking up in the middle of the night with what may or may not have been a foot cramp, the other day I amanged to hurt myself in another bizarre manner.

I was going to make toad in the hole for tea on Thursday, but after my train was cancelled and its replacement turned up an hour later I didn’t much feel like going through the effort any more, so I decided to make a quick sausage hotpot type thing. We had some chillis in the fridge that needed using up, so I grabbed one of them to chick in the pan. After chopping it, I must have touched my face or something becasue about a minute later the piece of skin between my top lip and my nose started to burn. Seriously, it felt like the area was on fire!
Running cold water over the burning spot helped, but only while the water was actually running. As soo as it stopped, the fire returned worse than ever. My eyes were actually watering with the pain of it by this point! I then tried rolling a cold bottle of beer from the fridge over it with the same result. Finally, I remembered what I’ve always been told about spicy foods – if it burns your tongue, don’t drink water – that will only make the burning worse. Milk or yoghurt is the way forward (why do you think Indians drink Lassi?). I poured some milk into a cup and drank, taking care to purposely give myself a milk moustache. The relief wasn’t instant, but within 30 seconds the firey sensation had faded to a mere dull ache. A couple of minutes later it had gone completely.
And that’s the last time I forget to wash my hands after handling chilli!
Poor Bev! You are in the wars at the moment.
I know! Hope my luck changes soon…
Ohhh, I know this … Being not exactly a kitchen heroine I wiped a hair out of my eye after // during handling peppers (I tried making sweetcorn chili soup). I think I needn’t go into further detail.
Oooh, that hurts!!! I knew putting chilli in your eye could hurt, but wasn’t expecting it to burn my skin! At least it gave me something amusing for my blog 😉
That truly hurts! I remember once on a camping trip I had been handling chili powder and a bug flew in my eye. Of course, I tried to get rid of the bug. Holy Oii! the pain!!! I thought I was going to turn blind!
Good on you for remembering that old trick! I’m glad it wasn’t worse!
Chilli in the eyes is horrible! Owww.
Wow, I had no idea that a chili pepper could burn the skin like that! Good for you for remembering the milk thing!
I didn’t either! Jan thinks I might have had a small cut and the chilli got in that.
I found some owls: http://beeblu.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/weekly-photo-challenge-love/#comment-5252
Ooooh, I love them! Perfect start to Monday morning. Thank you.
I once had my hands start burning, unaware that what I was chopping into tiny pieces was not, in fact, a bell pepper. It took almost a full day for them to stop. I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital, but sticking them in a bowl of milk did help a little 🙂
Ouch! I had no idea chillis could actually burn your hands!
Yikes! Glad the milk helped! I stopped by your page to let you know that I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger award. Just check out my post for more information. 🙂 http://castlesineurope.wordpress.com/about-me/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Oh, thank you! I’m not sure when I will get around to posting this but I definitely will!