Jalapeno pepper hands: how to cure the burn

July 3, 2004

[NOTE: this post, describing an accident involving jalapeno peppers, has attracted a huge number of comments. See below. And please add your own thoughts as we seek a cure for this strange affliction!]

jalapeno

I received the following email from a good friend who I’ll call CD. He lives in the Washington, DC area. He sends along this cautionary tale about a cooking experience gone horribly wrong. His story is by turns frightening and hilarious. Enjoy.

Dude, I got a great story for you that I’ll try to relay in this message. Friday night S and I went over to J and C’s. I was going to help C prepare for a catering gig he had on Saturday. So we get there and start boozing and hanging out. We eat dinner and then begin the process of prepping for the catering gig.

Well, one step in the catering cooking process was to roast a 5-pound bag of jalapeno peppers on the grill and then remove the skins and de-seed them. Like what you’d do with a roasted red pepper. Well, at about 10:30pm I belly up to the table outside with all the peppers and start going to town. An hour later, I had peeled all 5 pounds worth….the catch is that I did it with no gloves.

At about mid-night S and I leave and I start complaining that my hands are burning. Not terribly, but a bit of fire. An hour later, we are back at S’s and it really sets in. Pain like I have never felt. Unbelievable, extreme, terrible, super harsh burning pain in both hands and even a little ways up both arms. It was like I had burnt both hands in a fire.

Now, I have to set the time frame so you can get the full affect of how long this pain lasted….it was at about 1am Saturday morning when I really began to realize i was in some trouble. At about 2:30am I woke S up and said I needed help (she had been asleep for about an hour). She got on the Internet and looked up how to stop jalapeno burn. She called two emergency rooms and even a number of “ask the nurse” hotlines. Nothing. At about 3:30am I was in so much pain i was rolling around on the floor almost yelling. By that time I had dipped both hands in milk, olive oil, vegetable oil, yogurt, oatmeal, water with baking soda, a bleach water mix, aloe and even mineral oil. Nothing helped.

At one point, I had both hands covered in aloe, a wet wash cloth on each and my hands in two huge bags that were filled with ice and water. That did not even help. at about 5am S calls my doctor at his emergency number. He says to get in the car and go to the emergency rooms at GW. So, we get in the car and I ride with my hands out the window to let the wind somewhat cool them down.

I check in with the front desk and am taken back to some ER room at about 6am. Now, realize that I am SO embarrassed at this point. Everyone in there is looking at me like I am a freak. They even wrote on the ER board where they identify what is ailing a patient “CD, jalapeno hands.” It was funny as hell.

Once I am in my little holding room they give me a shot a morphine, which by the way does nothing to ease the pain. Damn good high, but nothing for the pain. After the morphine they give me a shot of something stronger which also does nothing for the pain. I even got a shot of straight benedryl because they thought I might be having an allergic reaction. Needless to say, nothing works for the pain. They debated admitting me at one point. They also talked about putting me on some IV of pain killers.

Finally, after being there for about 3 hours, they tell me to go home and basically just wait out the pain. They did give me a prescription for some really strong pain killers.

Well, to get to the end….the pain finally lessoned to where I could take it on Saturday night at about 6pm. I was basically in a living hell for like 18 hours. Even today (Monday morning) I still feel a burning in both hands. If I scratch any part of my body, it immediately starts to burn. I can just bump into something and even that little bit of contact sets off a slight burn. And get this, my feet have this low grade burn from walking on them. That’s how much of the jalapeno oil got into my body.

Tagged as: Food and Drink, jalapenos, jalapeno_hands, Popular Posts

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  • Gene

    I’ve never experienced anything so painful as when I mistakenly carved out the seeds and membranes of 3 serrano peppers with my fingers. I suffered overnight, holding onto ice cubes constantly. I fond the remedy after trying everything in the house. Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula, balm. Coated my hands with it and 20 minutes after it gets absorbed by your skin, RELIEF! I guarantee it works.

  • sheila

    Okay, I don’t know if this has already been posted. Honestly, I didnt’ want to weed through all the comments. I was looking for a cure for a friend. I do, however, have a little advice. The best advice I can give is prevention. If you will cut and de-seed your peppers under cold, running water, it helps to close up your pores and prevent the oils from absorbing into the skin. If you are still affected by the oils, try wearing gloves while cutting your peppers. Also, if the fumes seem to overwhelm you, put a bandana or other cloth over your mouth and nose while cutting peppers. Hope this helps.

  • Misty

    Cocoa butter works wonderfully, thank you Gene, i tried everything.

  • Stephanie

    I will never formally admit this, but it worked.
    I peed on my hand, soaked it in plain cold yogurt and wiped it off, not rinse. im gross, i know, but my hands dont hurt

  • Ashley

    So… I found this Stuffed Chicken with Jalapeno’s and crm. cheese recipie and made it tonight for din din. Sounds good hey? Well I dont know if it was good or not because my hands have been soaking in milk for hours!!!! Yep, I didn’t use gloves. First time with jalapeno’s! While my food was in the oven my hands started to burn. I looked online quickly on how to stop the burning and the milk was the first thing I read, so i tried it. while my hands were in there it was good but taking them out it burned. Tried the soap and hot water.. nothin. so as im typing this i have an over abundance of alo vera on my hands which seems to be calming the pain. nice thing is since your hands are wet you can blow on them to cool them even more. I know sounds silly but…. Im not peeing on my hands

  • Susan

    The quickest cure I’ve found is to take some type of oil, vegetable, baby, etc. and rub on your hands for about 15 minutes….I used this because I read on another post that the capsacium is oil soluble….as I rubbed the oil into my hands it turned white and I rinsed my hands with the hottest water I could stand…I rinsed and reoiled my hands for about 15 to 20 minutes and could feel the heat and sting leaving my hands….this worked very well for me….you can tell when you’ve gotten most of the capsacium out of your hands as the oil you are “washing” your hands with will eventually be the normal color…Hope this helps, it sure did for me….

    • Marge

      Thanks so much for your remedy with the vegetable oil and hot water. I tried vinegar, alcohol, sour cream, bactine, baking soda and the only thing that helped was rubbing in vegetable oil, cleaning my hands with an olive oil based soap and hot water and then reoiling and rubbing it in for 15 to 20 minutes. The pain has finally subsided and I hope I can get a good nights sleep. Hope this helps others that are crazy enough to work with hot peppers without gloves.

      • Yank

        This worked like a charm. It still stings but I repeated the oil (I used olive oil, but switched to veg oil). I also used Melalucea oil (tea tree oil) in between to help take the sting out. I did more oil messages and the hottest of H2O rinses, as I am a surgeon and have surgery tomorrow! The hot H2O rinse was the killer! I turned up the heat and thought this worse than child birth! But it worked and I can do surgery tomorrow!! Best advise and I shall wear gloves next time.

  • Christopher Daw

    Newley – I love that my story has attracted so much attention. 5 years later it’s still a funny read and it makes me laugh to look back at that night.

    Great stuff.

    CDaw

    • http://newley.com Newley

      Absolutely, Chris! It’s amazing that your agonizing experience has attracted thousands of readers and over 250 comments. You should harm yourself in kitchen accidents for our entertainment more often! :-)

  • Kait

    I only cut one JA, but boy was it potent! Started feeling the tingles in my cuticles and fingers withing 30 minutes. I used baking soda and water, as well as sanitizer, which both helped a bit. I found that I also got relief using Technu…It’s a wash for poison ivy and oak. I suspect it removes the JA oils just like the poison oak oils. I’m lucky to have had it at home – as an avid hiker in northern CA it’s definitely an essential! If you can find it, I’d suggest it! Using it as soon as possible is probably best, though

  • Dan

    I just made some guacamole dip, I used one Jalepeno pepper, so I figured I would be good and didn’t bother with gloves. WRONG, my figers are burning a little along with the side of my cheek that I touched. But all this is nothing in comparison with my lips, I’m not sure if I licked my fingers or what by my lips are on fire, I’ve been sucking on ice cubes and sticking my lips to my frosted beer trying to keep them cool. I drank a small glass of milk but everything has been temporary relief? I saw the post about rubbing alcohol, I’m still not sure if that is a bad joke or not? I think I plan to wait it out and just walk around with purple lips until the swelling goes down. If this is happening to my lips, I can’t imagine what my cornhole will feel like. :)

  • Hot hands!

    ALl I can say is Penetin and baby powder worked wonders for me!!!!

  • MysticIce

    Okay, so I’ve dealt with jalepano peppers before and never had a problem. Had never done much research, so wasn’t aware that I needed to wear gloves when cutting.

    Today, OMG!!! I cut ONE, just ONE jalepano pepper and a couple hours later my left hand was BURNING!!! Since I was holding the knife with my right.

    Remedies are going to very based on each individual person’s chemistry, but for me, baking soda mixed with water is a HUGE relief and is helping greatly. The idea is, after all, to neutralize the acid. Baking soda does that. But, if you’ve dealt with a lot more than one pepper, it might not work as well.

    Plus, make sure you drink lots of water or OJ to help neutralize the acid from within as well.

    So far so good for me. Considering the fact that I cut the jalepano about 11am this morning and my hand didn’t really start burning until I got in the shower at like 4:30/5:00ish pm this evening, I figure I’ve been doing pretty good over some of the stories I’ve read. It’s 7:30ish pm now, so only a couple of hours of pain so far and with the baking soda paste helping, I should be in good shape when I go to bed tonight. ::Crosses fingers::

  • http://newley.com Jamie Aldredge

    OMG child birth did not last as long!!!!!!!! I tried all the remedies. I tried oil, vinigar, and OMG my hands hurt so badly I can not remember everything I have tried. I also tried the sunburn stuff….aloe, solarcane. vinigar, WTF nothing is working. I took benedryl, drinking, everything………..NOTHING WORKS!…..I ran my hands under cold water, it works for a while…off and on. Than the ice thing, ice in a plastic bag rubbing my hands for a while…..that is the only thing that has worked for me

  • Sugar

    I cut about 30 jalapenos in half and filled them with cream cheese and wrapped them in bacon. I began at 5pm and it is now 9:30pm. I have tried everything listed except pee and my hands are still on fire. I scrubbed them with sugar and that seemed to work but as I now am typing the pain is coming back and the relief was only for about five minutes. I’ve never had them burn this bad after cutting jalapenos but the batch I got this time were really hot. This really sucks.

    • Scarlett

      I did the same thing last wknd. I cut and deseeded 20 jalapenos, filled them with chicken and cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. It was my first experience with them, ( no gloves) and I will NEVER forget it! During the cutting, they had me coughing, and about 20 minutes later my hands were burning horribly. I thought I could even feel it in my arms. I tried all kinds of crazy things…. someone said to try vinegar, but there was none in the house so I smeared my hands in pickle relish. Since it had been in the fridge it felt good until it warmed up. Then I tried butter, mustard, sugar, and pickle juice. They all provided a little relief while they were cold. I tried toothpaste, I thought that helped, but only for a few minutes, then it burned again. The only thing that really really killed the burn was keeping my hands in a cooler full of ice water. Everytime I took them out, it was agony again. My fiance learned how to take out my contacts…lol. I couldnt sleep for many many hours that night, and I kept a cup of ice water by the bed to dunk my hands in. Eventually the pain went away in my right hand, and i fell asleep with my left in the cup of water. The next day, my hands felt normal again, except the finger tips in my left hand still burned a tiny bit. The pain lasted for about 10-12 hrs. HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE!

    • Kaelie Moyer

      I made the same recipe. started at five and here i am now 2 am and still in pain! in one hand!!!!! im sitting here ice bag in hand, trying to freaking find SOMETHING to do about it..

  • Ben

    I tried rubbing alcohol first, which didn’t stop the burning for more than a few minutes, but I imagine it served to get any remaining oil completely off of my skin. Problem after that was all of the oil that had already been absorbed.

    Next I tried baking soda paste. Just mix in a bit of water and smear the paste all over the parts that burn. Let it dry for 10 min or so and then scrub it off. This reduced the pain somewhat, but it was still there.

    Next I tried milk. I didn’t have any 2% or whole milk so I actually used half and half. After about 10 min of soaking, the pain was the least it had been since my whole ordeal started, but it would still come back if I didn’t continually soak my hand in it.

    The whole time I’d been trying all of these remedies, of course, I’d also been searching the web for various solutions. What struck me the most was the idea of running your hands under HOT water to open up the pores and let the oil get out. So here is what ultimately ELIMINATED my pain:

    1) Run your hands under HOT water. As hot as you can withstand. I know it hurts, but it’s for the best.
    2) Use some kind of grease-fighting dish soap. I had Method dish soap but some other posters have claimed good results with Dawn.
    3) Run your hands under HOT water again. If you can make it hotter than before, the hotter the better.
    4) Put your hands in warm milk. Don’t use cold milk as it will close your pores up again and you want the milk to get in there and neutralize the oil. It might be worth noting that I used half-and-half since I only keep skim milk in the house.

    This completely stopped my pain. I hope it works for other people too.

    • Alice

      I tried the hot water method with Dawn dish soap and then the warm milk, worked pretty darn good, thanks for sharing, thought I would have to go to the emergency room till I read your post thanks

  • Beth

    I tried the milk and hot water, it worked so far i also put aquafor on it after. Thanks for the help.

  • cher

    I tried the “running ur hand through hot water with soap”, works much better, because u are opening up the pores, and cleaning it out, try it.

  • Jahn

    Cortiad, intensive therapy cream… caked on, in front of a fan, seems to be working now after about 26 hours…. I got relief with a bag of ice, but it didn’t end it at all… I as well chopped and deseeded about a pound, spooned the seeds out with my right hand, held with my left- my left has been on FIRE for the last 24 hours, now getting a LITTLE bit better… YUMMY jalapeno sauce though, but I will never do it without gloves again, never, never, never! Typing with my right hand now, seriously, anything I touch brings it right back…. I don’t know why I was not thinking and realizing the gloves, but I will next time, I am never letting this happen again, lesson learned.

  • Nicole

    okay, i cut about 20 jalapenos last night then made a huge mistake and took a hot shower…..I was in pain the worse pain ever my hands were on fire and i most have touched my lips because they were burning too…this went on for hrs and I tried everything, baking soda, milk, vegetable oil. the list goes on but nothing worked I finally just got a very ice cold bowl of water next to the bed and just put my hands in it for awhile ….i would then fall asleep to wake up again with horrible pain so i would just repeat, put my hands back in the water…….this went on from 1am to 7am finally so exhausted i feel into a deep sleep. my hands still have some pain but I can live with it :) Never again will I touch a jalapeno again, lol….

  • http://artistinwood.net mark

    Living in Texas and eating peppers most of my life, I have learned to handle them ONLY with gloves on.

    I love the taste but sometimes can’t take the heat.

  • Eleanor

    I too was in much pain after cutting up only 3 jalapenos. I found this site and read through many of the comments. I must say washing my hands in Dawn soap 3 times in as hot of water as I could stand and then I put my hands into a bowl of warm milk. After soaking them in milk for a bit I just dried them off with paper towel and didn’t rinse them. I am very happy to report it works like nothing I have tried yet. My hands are pain free. Only the odd flare up if I go near heat. Thanks for the ideas. I will be happy to sleep tonight instead of being awake in pain.

  • RikiC

    I handled one jalapeño pepper and emptied the seeds with my hands and it didn’t burn right away. I touched my nose first and that burned like hell and I tried milk on my face and eventually that went away but when my hands started kicking in it was unbearable! I tried everything, milk, rubbing alcohol, olive oil, but it hurt all day! It might have gone away sooner if i haven’t kept my hands in ice water all day, which was the only relief I got. And after finally falling asleep, I woke up and the pain was gone! So maybe time is the only cure!

  • Melanie

    Hi,

    my lip got burned really bad and i have tried yougrt, milk,
    and natural gels. but nothing seems to work!!!!!
    My lips burns sooooo bad it just kills me ! :( ! :( ! :(
    any help???

    -Melanie

  • Lorie

    What works really good is poison ivy treatments or creams. it gets all of the jalapeño oils out.

  • Rose

    Making salsa with jalapeno peppers yesterday – dumb thing to do without gloves. That was about 1:45 p.m. by 2:15 I felt some burning sensation – washed my hands with soap and water. Pain started to spread around my fingers – burning. I soaked in ice water, milk, yogourt, rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, ice cream, aloe vera all with temporary relief and kept alternating these – no more ice water as I was told water doesn’t do much except spread the oils more. It was pretty extreme the burning sensation, I was crying and almost screaming – by 4 a.m. I was almost falling asleep still with my hands in ice cream alternating with rubbing alcool when I thought why not try cottage cheese – it’s dairy like milk or yogourt or ice cream – just maybe. So I did and within minutes – the burning subsided a bit that I was able to sleep with some burning sensation left but manageable. Walk up at 7 for an appointment with no more pain. No more jalapenos for this lady.

  • Anna

    Well, I don’t have a cure for you (though lime juice seems to work for me, but I have wonky chemistry) but I do know something that helps prevent this. If you don’t want to wear or don’t have gloves you can try rubbing your hands down with EVOO PRIOR to handling the peppers. Make sure you get the oil under nails and massaged into the cuticles. It makes slicing and dicing the peppers a tad more like an exercise in skill since everything is super slippery now, but just take your time and don’t nick yourself or you’re in for a world of hurt.
    Hope that helps in the future, it does for me!

    PS: I can’t take credit for this, I saw it in a movie with Penelope Cruz (can’t for the life of me remember the name, but she was an amazing chef and had severe motion sickness…can look it up on imdb.com) and decided to try it the next day in the kitchen and it worked well for me.

  • Chris

    Just to let you know, I have messed with habanero peppers and jalepeno peppers on a regular basis. I made salsa and pickles and I cut up roughly 20 peppers. Just to note, DO NOT USE HOT WATER. This opens your pores and makes it worse. I cut up these peppers at 10 AM and no pain until I got in the shower at 6 PM. The only thing that I tried after reading all these posts were alcohol swabs. Worked like a charm, well at least I am typing right now. Just thought I would throw my two cents in. I was a firm believer in gloves are for sissys but I think I will go against pride next year when I make my salsa.

  • one-handed typer

    All I can say is “S.O.B. this hurts alot!!!!!” I never heard of this happening and my friend gave me about 12 jalapenos. I put 3 in my salsa ( I used canned last year.) Then I decided to cut up the rest and freeze them for future use. I’ts been 7 hours now and I’ve held an icecube nearly the whole time. Decided to google this and have come to realize the amount of trouble I’m in for. Have tried just about everything that has been suggested that I have here at the house. The dawn and hot water hurts sooooooo soooooooo much that when you stop it actually feels good….for awhile. I have some lidacaine patches here and I’m currently trying that and the heat is starting to come back. I’m drinking lots of water so I can try the pee tecnique next. This will make a great story tomorrow, right? I do hair and have to use this hand to wash hair tomorrow…in hot water……yikes Anyways, it’s good to know I can type with one hand if I have to…and that I’m in good company…would love to party with all of you.

  • GEB

    Well, I have no solution, but at least I’m laughing right now. I cut only one pepper this morning to make some salsa. Within a half hour my hands were “tingling”, and within an hour they were on fire–red and very hot. After showering they were worse and I began to wonder if I was destined for the emergency room. But I waited it out and by this evening they started to calm down…until about an hour ago when I started cooking dinner, and they started to flare up again. I started thinking maybe it wasn’t the jalepeno and that maybe I had some weird disease instead. So I headed for Google. I had only entered the words, “burning” and “hands” when Google suggested “burning hands from jalepeno”, and I followed a link to this site. I’m relieved and amused–to the point that I think I can now withstand the suffering–all in the name of a good story.

  • burningfingersyawwwww

    Well….consider me jalapeño victim # Nth…..my fingers in left hand are burning. The funny thing is I cut up (seed, stem and all) bare hand and eat the whole thing with no problem. I sure get minor burns here and there but it usually goes away after washing it off. This is a different case, it’s been about 3 hours now and still burning. The irony is didn’t even noticed it’s hotness when I was eating it, but my fingers are on fire.
    Well, I am going to try hot water wash with soap, then the oil, then vinegar (substitute for the pee suggestion) along my trial and error, I hope I find a remedy that works……I don’t have cocoa butter though:) hahah. Anyway, interesting post and my pain is manageable …..see I’m typing, I just hope to remember not to touch my ……when I pee nor forget and take of my contact lesses :)

  • boulangey

    i am trying to keep my husband’s hands from burning..and he says to write, “nothing f’ing works”

  • michgro

    I thought of the “Pee” thing then I thought about it and Pee has acid in it but it has ammonia in it too…so I tried Windex. It took the pain away almost immediately. I just sprayed it on> Then when I washed it off. the pain came back! Tried the oil and hot water thing with Tea tree oil, that worked for awhile too! I hate that the pain comes back especially under my thumb nail. Maybe if I only had it on my surface skin instead of under my nail it would be controlled by now.
    O.K. now I will compare the other treatments with the “Pee” thing….B right back!
    O.K. the pee thing burns like heck Under my nail ouch! I let it be on my hand for 10 seconds. started to ease pain, the I rinsed it off. Pain left while washing off with water. Came back a little less but it still hurts..think! Think! Got it!
    Lidocaine cream helped. if I has Oragel or Preperation H I would try it. still under my nail is the worst!

  • http://SendmeanSOS! Cswins

    we’ll I was reading everyone’s stories about “THE BURN” of “Jalapenos”…and I cut them and took out the seeds like a champ, and then washed my hands and….THE BURN! I tried all I could, the oil, dawn, mayo, creamcheese, rubbing alcohol…I tried these things over and over…Nothing seemed to work, but I remember my Mom got a perscription for burn cream, went to her house got the cream, used it…the 1st time , got some relief, waited 25 min later used some more…the burn is gone…So, If anyone does go to the Emergency room or Dr’s.. get some cream…It is called Silverdene cream. Next time I will be wearing gloves, but they say it can sometimes go through them…If so..get the Silverdene cream. I’am feeling my hands now, and the burn is totally gone.

  • cher

    Tried the hot water,dish soap,milk……still on fire, then put some burn cream after seeing the last post I remebered I had some……relief:)

  • tva

    tried all the things submitted from lemon juice to aloe vera nothing worked. tried the hot water dawn hot water warm milk treatment minimal pain. auctually no pain til i touch stuff i touched with jap hands . guess i will clean everything. try it it will help!

  • Tammy

    My daughter had same issue. We put on Silver Sulfadiazine cream 1% with great results. Used by police to cure pepper spray burning!

  • Joe Piervincenti

    Hi!
    I’ve become a jalapeno lover and was fascinated with the comments. I garden, learned about rubbing the pepper on my arthritic ankle (amazing relief!) and capsaicin. I have some green peppers right here with me now. I rubbed the ankle, pain gone, and seperated out the seeds. I did use a plastic fork and knife to do that! I had some nacho chips with some shreeded cheddar cheese with spicy ranch dressing and tiny bits of pepper and it was hot but tolerable. I am not an adventurer, lol, but, how do these people bite the pepper itself and go MMMMMMM!!!!! LOL!

  • I hate jalapeno

    I tried everything northing works but relief comes from rubbing you fingers on limes for about 30 mins

  • MrsMoe

    So I cut up 2 serrano peppers, which I have done a dozen times before. I never knew you could get burned, but I think I made the mistake of washing with hot water when I was done, because it didn’t burn prior to that. I think the hot water opened my pores and let the pepper oil soak in. so long story short, I tried a million and one things, but the combo that finally worked for me was, the hottest water I could handle, dawn dish soap, I did that 3 times and then soaked in hot milk, I used whole milk. Then after soaking for about 10 min, I peed on my hand. I know it sounds grose, but urin is steril. And hey, it helped. It still burns a bit, but nothing like it was. Thank you for all your advice everyone!

  • brittany

    ok ya my aunt told me to wair gloves im 22 do u think i listened negative so my hands have been burning since 6pm its now almost 4am i tried toothpast which made it burn worse cold water ice musterd icecream aloe gel vegtible oil n water then got on here tried hot water n soap did not work but burned like wild fire so since im a cosmetology student i thought i need to clean out the pores right so i got my peel off facial mask out n put it on my hands put them n front of the fan n waited for it to dry peeled it off n the pain had went away alot but not completely so i did it again omg the pains gone ugh my hands fill so much better n im goin to bed hope it works for u to o ya my face peel is australian tea tree oil and vitamin E works awsome

  • Sasha S.

    none of this shit works.. the hot water/dawn/milk thing seemed hopeful.. but my hand are just sticky and burning even worse.. i used a glove on one hand that i touched the seeds with, the other i didn’t protect..i don’t understand how this hurts so freaking muchhhhh.. i want to chop these hands off!!!! nothing has worked.. alcohol (NO!), bleach (NO!!!) The vegetable or cooking oils- don’t work either. I dont know what to do.. This is agonizing! DO NOT HANDLE ANY HOT PEPPERS WITHOUT GLOVES>> JUST DONT DO IT!!!!!

  • Julian

    Love all the painful comments
    I have one that takes the cake.
    I was working in a kitchen as a sous chef, we were making some kind of
    Habanero salsa. I took a quick break to go to the restroom before dinner rush. Had to go number 1. Know where this is going? My unit was burning for a full day with no relief available! It felt like it was literally on fire! What could I do stuff it in sour cream? Yogurt? Ice water? I could not concentrate on anything! One of the most painfull experiences in my life!
    Word to the wise, wear gloves when cutting peppers and go to the bathroom before you start cutting!

  • Moron

    My hands burn so bad. If you are reading these comments to find relief it is already to late. The only thing you can do now is treat the pain. Any pain relief cream, or burn cream will do. If all else fails, calamine spray will dull the pain if you have nothing better. I am going to bookmark this page to see if anyone comes up with a solution.

  • marla

    So far nothing is freakin’ working! got my right hand in milk and ice and it’s goin’ numb, but know that when i take it out, will prob be still fighting this horrendous pain. Our first garden and had jalepeno peppers, but I’LL NEVER CUT ANOTHER ONE AGAIN!!!

  • Miriam

    I found the pee and milk soak (no milk here, so I used kefir instead) suggestion and tried it after using the hottest water and detergent suggestion, both of them about an hour ago, and am pain free.  Don’t know which worked, maybe the combination.  

    • Anonymous

      Interesting. Could this be a breakthrough?

  • Jesse

    I just happened upon this through google, while suffering from the same problem. Tried lemon juice with no relief, went through our first-aid/medical supplies and found Calamine lotion, and to my enjoyment it worked! I let it sit for a few moments, then washed it off with warm water and soap. Good luck to anyone with Jalapeno burns!

  • Thekieslings

    Holy moley! That must of hurt. Here’s my story: I was paring some jalapenos last night to make cream cheese and bacon grilled jalapenos. and for like 5 hours and 30 minutes I had felt like my hands were in an oven! I don’t remember all, but I tried: Icy water (helped the best), flour, lemon juice, ketchup, hair gel, mouthwash, Eucerin , warm milk, toothpaste, and then FINALLY honey did the trick. Then I had to squeeze frozen packs and sponges for like another hour. I just went to sleep holing a pack in each hand, and when I woke up this morning, it stopped burning! Hallelujah!

  • Girlabouttown

    Finally some relief!! Lanacane. Then, about 10 minutes later, thoroughly washed hands in HOT water and used dishwashing liquid (Dawn). I did this three times, wash and rinse in HOT water.  Calamine. Leave on for another 10 minutes. Rinse off in cool water. Spray on Poison Ivy treatment. I think it’s alcohol-based and it doesn’t leave your hands greasy.

    The burn comes back after awhile and I just repreat the steps, but washing my hands with cool water and regular hand soap.

    Geesh! Why don’t recipes warn people about this!

  • Better now

    I tried many of these treatments with no help for my burning hands.  Finally, after 12 hours, the burning has subsided.  I think the best thing to do is just hold on to an ice bag for comfort, and wait it out.  I’ve enjoyed reading all these comments in the mean time though. :)

  • Better now

    P.S.  I just wrote up my own pepper experience on my blog:  http://ahappyvalentine.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-try-this-at-home.html

  • alw

    try cortizone 10. i just got done cutting up jalepenos, and washed my hands twice. then i made the mistake of scratching my nether regions (we all do it) and got a burning sensation so bad down there that i was in tears. i put some cortizone 10 on it and got instant relief.  it still burns a little but its completely bearable now.

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