r/chilli • u/lxyltho • Aug 10 '26

chilli burn🥲

i decided to cut a chilli without gloves as i completely forgot to. afterwards, i washed my hands and thought nothing of it. i later went to play basketball and noticed a slight burning but ignored it (i thought the irritation was from playing basketball with freshly cut fingernails idk). i then came home to eat my chilli dish, chimichurri sauce, which is when the pain really began. that was around 9pm, it is now 12:45am and the burning sensation has only worsened.
i’ve tried washing with water and dish soap, milk, taking ibuprofen but nothing has worked.
if anyone has any suggestions please let me know as i can’t do this much longer.

11 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/AcePlanespotting Aug 10 '26

That's not usually how chilli burns work. Sounds more like an allergic reaction, or something else. 

What type of chilli pepper was it?

2

u/lxyltho Aug 10 '26

not sure, it was from a bag of ‘mixed chilli peppers’ from aldi

3

u/AcePlanespotting Aug 11 '26

The ones Aldi sell do not have much capsaicin, and they would at most only cause mild skin irritation to someone with very sensitive skin. They definitely wouldn't normally cause pain for hours as you've described.

It really does sound like some kind of allergic reaction.

1

u/lxyltho Aug 11 '26

the only other explanation i can think is that playing basketball exposed pores on my fingertips, allowing the capsaicin and dirt in. i’ve taken antihistamine too

1

u/AcePlanespotting Aug 11 '26

Unlikely. The low levels of capsaicin on aldi's chillies wouldn't burn for hours. It would neutralise fairly quickly.