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Comment on YSK: Using dairy milk after being tear gassed or pepper sprayed doesn't provide more relief and has slightly increased infection risk. Use water or saline instead

jpreston2005@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Yeah but no. I’ve been tear gased, and water does nothing but make it worse. The capsacin is dissolved in an oil, and using water will only spread it over your body (and that shit hurts a lot everywhere it touches). Use milk, it will provide instant pain relief. The threat of bacteria in pasteurized milk is the same as in water, and odds are, after dumping milk all over, you’re probably going to wash yourself off afterwards.

if you’re gased, don’t waste time following this bad advice. Take it from someone who’s actually had been gassed, only milk works. Don’t try water.

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masquenox@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The capsacin is dissolved in an oil,

That only counts for OC gas (pepper spray) - most anti-dissent chemical weaponry doesn’t contain capsaicin. Milk won’t do shit for CS gas, for instance.

Considering how many different types of this shit there actually is and the fact that they can mix them up pretty easily regardless of what the law actually says makes a one-size-fits-all solution pretty difficult.

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- jpreston2005@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  CS gas
  
  Science Direct website says that
  
  In contrast to other forms of chemical exposure, irrigating the affected area will only intensify and prolong the effects of CS gas or particles.
  
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  - masquenox@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not sure about that paper - it recommends ocular irrigation (with water) for OC gas… the exact thing you mentioned hurting so bad in your first response. The thing to remember here is that a lot of the discourse on this doesn’t distinguish between the use of a liquid to flood particles away from skin and membranes through it’s kinetic action (possible with CS gas and very necessary with white phosporous) and relying on the chemical properties of the liquid itself to bring any kind of relief.
    
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usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are perceptional reasons why it may feel like milk worked better such as it being cooled vs using room temperature water. Or from being the second thing used. Or from various different factors

But the research above suggests it doesn’t do as much as people think it does

The infection risks are not the same. Milk has stuff in it that microbes like for growing where water doesn’t have nearly all that. Other stuff can enter inside. The eye infection pathway is concerning especially right now when bird flu seems to enter that way and is in large quatities of dairy milk. Not all pasturization methods are certain to actually remove it (i.e flash pasturization might not)

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- jpreston2005@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For all the effort you’ve put into trying to convince people that water is the answer, it’s reasonable at this point to ask you to try it yourself. Get yourself some pepper spray from the store, and then spray your skin. Try to wash it off with water. Wait until you’re in sufficient pain and the water clearly didn’t do anything, then try milk, and feel your pain evaporate. You can do this experiment in less than an hour. Report back when you’re finished, or you can delete all this misinformation. Whichever.
  
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  - boatsnhos931@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ef around and fin out cuz
    
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Socsa@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
As someone who has actually been gassed, it makes no fucking difference. Milk doesn’t do shit. Saline doesn’t do shit. Water doesn’t do shit. Goggles do shit.

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- rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What if the goggles do nothing?
  
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Lionheadbud@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah, if the irritant is capsaicin I would think that milk would wash it off sensitive tissue more effectively than water as capsaicin is more lipid soluble than water soluble. I think if you eat a spicy chili, to stop the pain you need to wash the irritant off your tongue and milk does this more effectively than water.

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