7 things to know about how to treat a sunburn
Want a quick tip for avoiding sunburn? Beware napping at the beach.
“At urgent care, you see people who have fallen asleep who end up with a sunburn,” said Kinsey Leonard, D.O., a physician in the Cape Cod Hospital Emergency Department and Urgent Care centers. “Instead of applying sunscreen every few hours, they slept on the beach for three or four hours, and they come in with a burn on exposed areas.”
A sunburn is actually a form of radiation burn, caused by excessive exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays or artificial sources of UV rays, such as a tanning bed, according to the National Institutes for Health. Make no mistake that it’s a real burn, and your body reacts with redness, blisters and numbness, just as if you were burned by hot coffee, Dr. Leonard said. However, sunburn can take more time to appear because it goes into the deeper layers of skin.
“You actually don’t notice the redness when it’s happening,” she said. “You notice it usually a few hours after you get out of the sun. It can peak after 12 to 24 hours and continue to worsen for a day.”
Teens are often at high risk for sunburn since they get distracted and forget to reapply sunscreen, Dr. Leonard said. If they turn a deaf ear to warnings about skin cancer, suggest that premature aging is not a great look for social media. And, she suggests buying them oil-free sunscreens that are less likely to contribute to acne.
How to Treat
In reality, few of us escape summer without some touch of sunburn, even if it’s just that patch on your ear you forgot to lather with sunscreen. Here are seven things to know about how to treat it (and avoid it), according to Dr. Leonard.
- Wash the burn, especially blisters, with warm soap and water. Never, ever, break the blisters, which actually protect the underlying skin. For relief, try cool baths, wet cloths or topical lotions such as aloe and calamine. Some research indicates that hydrocortisone may help but the research is inconclusive, Dr. Leonard said. The American Academy of Dermatology Association warns against trying to ease pain with products containing benzocaine because it can irritate the skin.
- Ibuprofen helps with pain and inflammation. Acetaminophen may also help with pain and fever.
- Avoid the sun until the burn heals or be sure it is covered by UV protective clothing. And check the UV protection numbers on clothing. An ultraviolet protection number (UPF) of 50+ is considered excellent, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
- Hydration is important because you are losing moisture out of your skin. So be sure to drink lots of water at the beach if you get a burn. Be cautious about alcohol, which can contribute to dehydration.
- Go to an urgent care center if you can’t control your pain; if there are large areas of burn and/or it blisters; if you have a sustained fever of 103 or above; if the burn isn’t healing or you have signs of dehydration (headache, vomiting, fatigue, inability to keep down fluids).
- If a child under a year old gets a sunburn, call your pediatrician or head to urgent care. Infants get dehydrated very quickly, Leonard said. “And it’s harder with kids under six months because you aren’t supposed to use sunscreen all over them. “So you should be really diligent about keeping babies out of the sun from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when the UV [rays] are the worst.”
- The best strategy, of course, is avoiding the burn in the first place. Make sure you apply enough sunscreen (at least two tablespoons to your body, says the Skin Cancer Foundation) and reapply it after swimming or sweating. Wear UV-protective clothing but apply sunscreen even under UV swim clothing so you don’t get a burn when your shirt rides up. And don’t forget to put sunscreen on often forgotten spots like the tops of your feet.
