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Posted by Guest - Should I Pop A Water Blister Or Leave It Alone? : Hopefully this information will help others who are wondering the same, I was wondering if a water blister would heal faster if I popped it.  I had 2 water blisters and experimented with one to see if popping the water blister would make it heal faster, while the other one I didnt touch at all and just left it alone.  (These blisters were both from the dermatologist doctor visit because they used liquid nigtrogern to freeze 2 ak's on the skin to get rid of them, so I figured I would try popping 1 water blister to see if it healed faster then the other one). Here is the details and how long it takes for the water blisters to heal and go away. 1) After getting back from the dermatologist, it will begin to fill with water and become a blister. The first 5 days it was quite sore and red and were full water blisters. On day 3 I popped one of them with a pin and did so multiple times during the day to try to drain the water blister. My experience with this so far?  Dont do it, you will just irritate it and it will fill with fluid again immediately anyways. (Plus you could infect it, leave it alone, there is no benefit that I seen doing this as mine got more "red" around it by doing so, so clearly I irritated it and did not help it). 2) After 6 days the water blister will itch around the edges.  This is a good sign, I can tell it is healing.  The watery blister will also be more dry, almost thick syrup like because it starts to leak a little on its own. Still red and edges begin to itch just slightly. 3) After 12 days, both are now scabbed over and itching some, so they are healing and there is no more liquid in either one. The water blister that I did not touch, seems to be  healing a little faster.  I'm sure by day 14 the scabs will be gone as they are close to falling off now. There are red spots there so it will probably be a while for the scars to go away, but water blisters are gone at this point. The moral of the story here based on my experience is do NOT touch them, you will irritate and make them more red. It wont make any difference draining the water blister because it is to new and just fills with water again. When it gets thick in week 2 you can dab it with a napkin, thats what I did as it was not sore anymore and just scabbing over. The first week is mostly healing, the 2nd week is mostly scabbing and that scab falling off near the end of week 2. At the end of 2 weeks the scab will be gone, and on mine they are about the same with the water blister I poked in at in week 1 being a little "behind" in healing compared to the other. Hopefully this gives you a time frame with your water blisters and lets you know its better just not to mess with it.

Guest Says: By the way in case you are wondering, both of these water blisters were located on the upper arm on the outside bicep area.

Guest Says: Here is a final update on this in case you are wondering how long does it take for scabs to completely fall off. In my case its as above and after 2 weeks the main scab falls off, but where the AK was you can tell it froze a little deeper then the circle around it (maybe because the skin is different where the AK is?).  So the scab falls off in 2 weeks but a new small one forms exactly where the AK was, which was about 20% of the original blister area, and then it took about 8 more days for that final smaller scab to fall off. Its now just a red area with a little indentation where that final scab was because it was deeper, so a minor scar in the center (indentation) and red area remains.   So total to have no scab at all was about 22 days total. By the way I wouldnt pick at it, blister or scab, just let it heal and go away on its own so you dont irritate it.

Guest Says: Interesting info because I picked at my water blister and I felt like it was just making it sore.  lol

Guest Says: Previous poster: Simple rule of thumb - Does the blister hurt when you pick at it to pop it? If it hurts it all then you are MAKING IT WORSE.  Do not pop or irrirate a blister as it will take longer to heal.

Guest Says: Thanks for this - it’s very useful. I have a 4cm blister from a burn, and the surrounding area is red to 7cm. I am keeping it dressed with sterile dressings but it’s very uncomfortable. I didn’t know whether to pop it or not, but now I will leave it alone.

Guest Says: I think that rule probably holds true for anything whether picking at scab, picking at blister, picking at stitches, etc., if you are doing something that makes it "feels more sore" or "look more red", then your body is telling you to stop because you are irritating it.  :) Also I read that scabs will scar less if you put vaseline on them, scars are created from scabs forming and vaseline helps that skin stay moist. Not sure if that would help here or not when the scab begins to form, but here is a discussion on the scabs scarring posted here

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