Additionally the mean temperature gradient after cold exposure was reduced after laser irradiation, while the number of fingers showing prolonged rewarming was unaffected.
Diagnostic tests only become useful three to five days after rewarming, once the blood vessels have stabilized.
Experts advise rewarming in the field only when emergency help will take more than two hours to arrive and refreezing can be prevented.
In most cases, the child will be hospitalized to monitor the rewarming process and to do the necessary tests needed to determine the extent of the frostbite.
Many patients experience severe pain in the affected part during rewarming treatment and an intense throbbing pain that arises two or three days later and can last days or weeks.
More damage can occur when rewarming is slow or the affected area is warmed and refrozen.
Narcotics are needed in most cases to reduce the excruciating pain that occurs as sensation returns during rewarming.
Slow rewarming is undertaken when hypothermia is present.
The extreme throbbing pain that many frostbite sufferers endure for days or weeks after rewarming is not the only prolonged symptom of frostbite.
The rapid rewarming approach to frostbite treatment, pioneered in the 1980s, has proved to be much more effective than older methods in preventing tissue loss and amputation.
This rapid rewarming halts ice crystal formation and dilates narrowed blood vessels.