In a previous article, I wrote about the benefits, as well as the harm that sun exposure can bring. As I said before, the sun can be both friend and foe. It all depends on us and our attitude to our own health. I promised some of my patients at that time that I would return to the topic of sunburn, so that you know what to do when faced with such a situation, what should or should not be done in these cases.
The hardest thing about a sunburn is that the symptoms don't show up right away. Thus, a person can sit in the sun without realizing that he/she is already in danger.
Sunburn symptoms appear a couple of hours after exposure to the sun. However, it may take up to 24 hours for the full effect of skin damage to appear.
The severity of symptoms depends on the extent of skin damage.
Mild sunburns. The skin damage is superficial with signs of inflammation; later peeling is observed. Healing occurs on its own within 10 days.
Moderate sunburns. The deeper layers of the skin are damaged. Symptoms of inflammation are expressed – redness, swelling, pain. Violated blood circulation in small vessels, swelling extends to the subcutaneous fat. It takes up to 18-21 days for such an injury to heal.
Severe sunburns. In addition to severe redness and other symptoms characteristic of a moderate and mild burn, extremely dangerous symptoms appear – deterioration in the general condition of the body, high fever, severe headache, vomiting. The skin heals for a long time, as its deep layers are damaged. This type of sunburn usually requires a visit to the doctor or even hospitalization.
To begin with, the most important thing is to determine what degree of sunburn you have and, depending on this, the appropriate treatment will be selected. With a severe sunburn, I strongly recommend not to be treated on your own and seek specialized help, as the consequences can be quite serious.
Based on my practice, I think it would be better to first tell you what not to do in case of sunburn. Why do I say so? Because when you are in pain and you panic, you are ready to do anything to get rid of the pain. In such situations, people often do themselves more harm than good.
So, what not to do with sunburn:
- do not put ice or ice packs on tanned skin;
- do not pierce any blisters yourself, this increases the risk of infection;
- do not use alcohol-containing preparations to wipe the burnt areas, because alcohol dries the skin;
- do not lubricate burned areas with olive, sunflower or other vegetable oils – they form a greasy film, which prevents normal air exchange and natural cooling;
- do not apply fermented milk products on the damaged areas;
- do not scratch or try to remove flaky skin;
- do not use soap and foaming body hygiene products – such products additionally dry out damaged skin;
- do not wear tight clothing after being burned;
- until the burn is completely healed, do not appear in the sun with bare skin.
Now that you are well aware of what not to do in case of sunburn, it's time to find out the rules of first aid.
The basic rules of first aid for burns are cooling, moisturizing, and relieving pain.
The easiest way to cool burnt skin is in a cool bath. Cool water contributes to the narrowing of blood vessels and the weakening of the inflammatory process, this temporarily alleviates your condition. If possible, you should not use the shower, because microtrauma is formed under the influence of water jets.
A good natural remedy is to add oatmeal to your bath. Colloidal oatmeal suspension helps suppress inflammation and relieve itching. Just grind oatmeal with a blender. Mix the resulting oatmeal with bath water and stay in cool water for 15-20 minutes.
To cool the skin, you can also wrap an ice pack in a damp cloth and apply it to the burn. This will absorb some of the heat from your skin, the walls of your blood vessels will shrink and the swelling will decrease.
A compress of cool green tea, decoction of parsley, chamomile, calendula is also good for cooling and soothing burned skin.
After cooling the area affected by sunburn, it is time to moisturize it.
Use a moisturizer, lotion, or emulsion that contains aloe vera, soy, or oat milk. They will soothe tanned skin.
Aloe juice helps to restore the skin after sunburns. You can make compresses with aloe juice, changing them every ten minutes. Juice should be diluted with boiled water in a ratio of 1:1.
Drink more water. This is very important because sunburn draws fluid to the surface of the skin and takes it away from the rest of the body. By drinking more water, you can prevent dehydration.
To improve the general condition in the absence of antipyretics, if the temperature has risen slightly, you can drink cool black or green tea with lemon or mineral water.
Of course, sunburn is a very unpleasant situation that can happen to you, but with the right approach, the symptoms will disappear after a while. Then you will forget about this situation, because people tend to forget about the problem when it disappears. But sunburn will not forget you, because their consequences can manifest themselves in much more serious forms even years later.
I urge you to read the article Benefit or harm? How sun tanning can affect your health if you haven't already and you'll see how important it is to properly expose yourself to the sun.