I doubt I could ever forget yesterday's day since I've never experienced anything like that before. But I surely learned something new from it, so I'll share it with you.

It all started while I was making dinner. Since I had a nice stock of home grown chilli peppers I decided to use one for the chicken I was preparing. I use chilis quite often; not that I am a terrible fan of spicy taste, but I really don't mind a bit of it in homemade dishes. I mostly add them to soups and sauces, and it also goes excellently with tomato.
Now, chilis are tricky little things. At least mine – you never know which one will come out spicy and which one not. So far I have learned to recognize them and I know what to expect once I add them to food. Not all of them get reddish color. Once I pick them from the plant, I usually wait a few days to see if they'll turn red and especially – how fast that happens. The faster, the sharper they are.

This time I knew very well the one I was going to use, which was really really 'picante' and looked like devil itself – small, 4 cms in lenght, and as red as it can get. And so I started cutting it and removing the seeds carefully, as they provide an even sharper taste. Yet I wasn't aware of what I had done.
While serving the dish, I started feeling an intense heat in the fingertips of my left hand. It dawned on me instantly – it was the chilli pepper. My personal calvary had begun. I run immediately for a glass of water in which I soaked my fingers. Yes, the dish tasted also spicy, but after some minutes, the burning feeling in my mouth was gone, while the fingers felt like on fire. Literally.
After an hour of soaking them in water, the situation wasn't improving, rather the contrary. I had to add some ice cubes to the water and I slowly got panicked… It was just a small chilli plant that I keep in my balcony-garden… it can't compare to the famous jalapeños that literally burn your skin away, or the yet hotter ones, habaneros, said to be for 20 times spicier than jalapeños… How could this be happening?!

Three hours later, I couldn't stand it anymore, it wasn't a decent hour for pharmacies or hospitals, so Juanpi was reading around and coming up with all possible homemade solutions. I tried applying: lemon juice (as it was an alkaline burn), vinegar, olive and vegetable oil, ethanol, sugar, salt, milk, baking powder, sprayed them with deodorant (the only thing with isopropanol we had around)… yet nothing helped form more than some seconds. NOT A SINGLE THING. The only calming solution was dipping them in cold water. Well, ice cold water. As fast as I took them out, I started screaming after few seconds. It was unbearable. And it was around midnight already.
As if it wasn't bad enough, the feeling spread to other three fingers. As soon as I touched something, it got "infected" by the chilli and consequently, it became a way for it to spread.
I doubted I would sleep at all, and it seemed I would have had to keep my hand in water all night. I don't know how, but finally in the middle of the night I managed to fall asleep.

Opening my eyes in the morning, the burning pain was gone, just the fingers felt like numb. A true after-burn feeling. I could hardly move them. And because the burning feeling was kinda returning back, we headed straight to the farmacy. Given that capsaicin (the chemical of pepper causing the pain) is not soluble in water I should have used isopropanol -or commonly called, rubbing alcohol-.
In the pharmacy, I told the story, met with a surprised look from the pharmacist. He has supposedly never ever heard of such case. OK, I know, this is not Mexico, but hey, things happen! And of course, ispopropanol is not something you can buy here straight away. At least by calling it isopropanol  or drawing the molecule. So I was left to the aloe vera gel that he offered to me instead.
I've been applying it since then, and I do feel relief, not too long-lasting, but it helps. Unfortunately, the "burn" spread to some fingers of my right hand this morning, but far below yesterday's level. Let's hope tomorrow I wake up and everything is back to normal.

So, the lesson I have learned is: ALWAYS PUT GLOVES ON WHEN CUTTING A SPICY PEPPER. Although I believe I won't use it for quite a while now, and even Juanpi, expert in spicy guindillas, threatens me with throwing the rest of chilis away. Well, I don't really want that, but certanly, I will be far more careful from now on!