I've been doing a bit of googling and it does seem that there should be more warnings on these products. I read in one piece that there is a BS Kite mark for them, which entails including safety information on the packaging, but of course that doesn't help people buying non-kitemarked products.
I also did a bit of googling for burns relating to the use of hot water bottles, and it seems to me that the sort of burn you've sustained does also happen with those. However, they are rare (both with wheaty bags and conventional hot water bottles) unless the person has some other underlying condition which makes them less likely to realise that their skin is burning. (Neuropathy and diabetes being the two most commonly quoted. The deep sleep of a tired smallholder didn't get a mention...
)
In looking at wheaty bags, most seem aimed at use for pain relief, and for cold feet other than in bed. So I do wonder whether they are not really intended for use in bed? They mostly say the heat will dissipate over 45 minutes or so, whereas of course in bed they are insulated and the heat will last longer. There are reports of bags combusting in bed, due to having been overheated and then put into the bed, where the insulation of the bedding prevents the heat escaping.
Bags which fit easily onto the turntable of the microwave shouldn't get overheated except through operator error. There was one tragic story where a lady had bought her mum a wheaty bag to use instead of her hot water bottle; the daughter had been worried about her mum having an accident filling the hottie with her shaking hands, so thought the wheat bag would be safer. However the mum seems to have overheated it, it set the bed on fire and the mum died in hospital the next day.
One article did mention that many of these bags are too large for the usual microwave, and may not turn properly because they're wedged against the sides of the oven. This can caused localised hot spots, and these can in turn cause combustion when insulated by bedding.
On the subject of insulating bedding... I have found that my hot water bottle can create excessive heat now that I have all wool bedding - duvet, pillows and mattress cover. The latter seems to reflect the heat back into the hottie, and I can find it too hot to put my feet underneath it (even with a fleecey cover on it - must knit it a woolly one.) So I wonder whether in your case, Fleecewife, the woollen underblanket, the silk duvet and woollen overblankets do the same thing, and can create enough heat in the wheatie bag to cause these burns.
I found guidance on using hot water bottles, which included the following tips:
- replace hot water bottles after two years
- use a cover
- fill with hot but not boiling water
- fill only to 2/3 full
- squeeze the air out before fixing the stopper
All of which, except the first, I do do - and I've only ever had leaks with hotties that were more than 5 years old.
(Actually I do use just-boiled water, but I put in a cupful of hot-not-boiling water first, and top up with just-boiled.)
If you definitely don't want to go back to using a water bottle, then either reducing the heat in the wheatie bag, as you did suggest upthread, or get an electric blanket that is safe for all-night use
and get it tested every 12 months (which is what we should all do with our electric blankets - in fact, our local Age Concern arranges for free testing to be offered at our local fire station every year.) My mum has an electric blanket on the bed I use when I visit that you can set to be on for an hour, so you put it on 10-15 minutes before you go to bed and it'll turn itself off after you fall asleep.
And, having read about people who did burn themselves on wheatie and water hotties, if your leg isn't improving by Monday morning, I wish you would get it looked at...
Topic: Low temp burns from wheat bags (Read 8347 times)
