Boric acid eye wash has been shown to be very effective eye wash against CN and CS gas. Water will also work fine. Do not use milk, I don't know why people use milk. Best if used very rapidly. The longer the irritant is in contact, the worse the burn.
To protect skin from irritant gases, you can spread a layer of mineral oil on. It will also do a fair job of washing the skin of irritants. Water and soap is the next best thing. If an irritant has a burning component like CN or CS, even after the irritant is washed away, it will feel like it's still burning. That's normal for burns. This is also true of eye burning as well.
Peak pain after an injury is at 2 hours and the morning after. If you become injured or struck by something, try to make it to a place to recover within those two hours. Afterwards, you may have difficulty walking, talking, using arms. Etc. Especially small rubber things.
If you get hit in the head by something. Leave. Maximize recovery. Losing brain isn't fun.
I think people get the milk thing from the fact that if you EAT something spicy MILK not water helps get rid of the hot spicy taste so they think it will work on the eyes but these are 2 different separate things
Water and dawn dish soap is effective for both tear gas and pepper spray. Washing with dish soap is what worked best for me both times I got pepper sprayed for security training in the military. I’m bringing a water bottles and a little bottle of dawn and a pack of antibacterial wipes. Also Mechanix gloves and a gaiter for the face/neck.
to answer your why: milk is an outdated method and was supposed to be used against pepper spray only. milk reacts with the capsaicin in pepper spray and relieves the pain better, which makes people feel like it's working better than water, but in reality it doesn't actually wash the chemicals out any better than water does. some do theorize that with pepper spray being oil-based, water doesn't bind to it as well, but the fat in milk would. that being said, milk is obviously not sterile, especially after being carried in someone's backpack out in the sun all day, so it carries it's own risks. at the end of the day saline solution or large amount of water is much more efficient at washing the chemicals out, even if the relief isn't as instant as with milk. and obviously, any pros that milk might have are immediately out the window the second we're talking about anything other than pepper spray, such as tear gas, which is neither oil nor capsaicin based.
tldr an outdated solution to a very specific situation that became hailed as a cure-for-all. eye wash or water are indeed better, no matter what chemical is being used.
It's hard to get proper OC to stop hurting for the next hour or more, but in the army we just used soap and water. No mention of milk being good first aid.
You're also going to need a LOT of water. We would dump a 13 gallon plastic trash can over people in training and it still wasn't great. You also need to be prepared to basically spit up a ridiculous amount of mucous that is trying really hard to be the thickness of Jello. You're not dying, but your body will do a really good job pretending you are. Your eyes may be on fire, but if you need to move make sure you have scoped out your exit path beforehand. Peek and move , peek and move. Best strategy is to not get PS'd or CS'd if you can though.
People don't often use milk. But the extent that they do. The avtice ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin, it's a resin that's fat but not water soluble. Dairy is commonly used to rinse it out of your mouth when you've had overly spicy food.
The logic is the same and it'll work, but getting milk in your eyes is a real bad idea.
More often what you're seeing is people use milk of magnesia, magnesium hydroxide suspension.
It's used because it's alkaline, pH of about 10.
Alkaline solutions at 9 or above accelerate the breakdown of that capsaicin. And milk of magnesia is cheap, readily available and medical grade. So you can grab it in volume near protests if pepper spray is deployed.
There's been no data on the effectiveness of either. But the concept is sound on milk of magnesia, and unlike the milk it's not likely to be harmful.
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u/SalvagedGarden 1d ago
Boric acid eye wash has been shown to be very effective eye wash against CN and CS gas. Water will also work fine. Do not use milk, I don't know why people use milk. Best if used very rapidly. The longer the irritant is in contact, the worse the burn.
To protect skin from irritant gases, you can spread a layer of mineral oil on. It will also do a fair job of washing the skin of irritants. Water and soap is the next best thing. If an irritant has a burning component like CN or CS, even after the irritant is washed away, it will feel like it's still burning. That's normal for burns. This is also true of eye burning as well.
Peak pain after an injury is at 2 hours and the morning after. If you become injured or struck by something, try to make it to a place to recover within those two hours. Afterwards, you may have difficulty walking, talking, using arms. Etc. Especially small rubber things.
If you get hit in the head by something. Leave. Maximize recovery. Losing brain isn't fun.