Sunburn
Sunburn
Cool Advice for Sun-Scorched Skin
You just got home from a day on the beach, and your skin knows it. If you forgot your sunscreen and got burned--or if you slathered it on unevenly and you have a streak of red across your face or shoulders--you're paying for it now with burned skin. Ouch. Redness, pain, swelling, discomfort and maybe even blisters are the telltale signs of too much unprotected time in the sun.
Women who wear makeup and moisturizers with sunscreen in them have an advantage in preventing sunburn, says D'Anne Kleinsmith, M.D., a staff dermatologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Sunscreen protects against wrinkles and skin cancer, too, she notes.
When it comes to sunburn, higher amounts of a protective pigment called melanin give women with dark skin and hair a slight edge over
women with fair skin and blond, red or light brown hair--but not much. Anyone can get sunburn, says Patricia Farris Walters, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology. Also, certain medications can interact negatively with ultraviolet light (from the sun or tanning booths), causing more severe sunburn. Any drug containing hormones--for example, birth control pills and estrogen-replacement pills--can make women more sensitive to the sun, causing brownish, blotchy pigmentation on the face or sometimes redness and sensitivity, Dr. Kleinsmith adds.
What Women Doctors Do Protect Dark Skin, Too Patricia Farris Walters, M.D. When she was in college, Patricia Farris Walters, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology, went to Florida on midwinter break. A dark-skinned brunette of Greek-American descent, she thought that her dark coloring made her immune to the sun's harsh rays. Not so. After spending a day on the beach in the middle of the winter, she experienced the worst sunburn of her life. Here's her advice. "My whole face blistered and peeled," she says. "I looked awful, and I was sick with fever and chills the whole night." So she tells women, no matter what your coloring, protect your skin.
(By the way, don't let yourself be seduced into thinking that tanning booths are burn-proof alternatives to natural sun. You can get a bad burn at a tanning salon.)
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When To See A Doctor A sunburn isn't usually serious enough to call for medical attention--unless it starts to blister. That's because blistering sunburn could potentially develop into deeper wounds and open the door to infection. Your doctor may prescribe ointments or cortisone lotions to reduce redness and antibiotics to prevent infection.
"Also, if you're taking medications, check with a doctor before you spend time in the sun," says D'Anne Kleinsmith, M.D., a staff dermatologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. "Common antibiotics such as tetracycline, sulfonamides and some medications for diabetes and high blood pressure can leave you much more sensitive to the same amount of light that other people wouldn't even react to, and you can get a bad sunburn," she says. This goes double for a drug called psoralen, prescribed for skin conditions including psoriasis and vitiligo. Used incorrectly, it can bring on severe sunburns, says Dr. Kleinsmith.
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HELP FOR THE RAW AND THE COOKED
If you're as red as a lobster and hurting from sunburn, women doctors offer these tips to help ease your misery.
Reach for pain relief. Dr. Walters suggests taking a couple of aspirin or ibuprofen (such as Advil) as you realize that you overdid it in the sun, even before you start feeling the burn. "Aspirin or ibuprofen offer sunburn relief in two ways," she says. They kill pain, and they also reduce inflammation and swelling.
"If you take them soon enough, aspirin or ibuprofen can help keep inflammation down and prevent a burn from getting worse," says Dr. Kleinsmith.
Continue taking two 200-milligram pills every 6 hours for 24 to 48 hours to keep inflammation down, suggests Evelyn Placek, M.D., a dermatologist and doctor of internal medicine in private practice in Scarsdale, New York.
Fashion a cool compress. The best way to soothe a sunburn is to apply cool water (not ice, which could traumatize irritated skin) as quickly as possible to prevent the sunburn from getting worse, advises Dr. Kleinsmith.
If the sunburn is in one small area, apply a compress made from a towel or washcloth soaked in cool water, suggests Dr. Placek.
Run a cool bath. If the sunburn covers most of your body, soak in a cool bath. "You probably don't want to take a cold shower, though, because the water beating on your sunburned skin will hurt," says Dr. Placek.
Step into an oatmeal bath. To relieve the itchiness of dried, sunburned skin, add a powdered oatmeal preparation such as Aveeno (available in drugstores) to a tub full of cool bathwater and slip in for a skin-soothing soak, suggests Dr. Walters.
Soothe on cortisone ointment. This anti-inflammatory salve can help keep down inflammation and swelling. For sunburned skin, use an ointment, not a cream. "Creams contain preservatives that can sting irritated or blistered skin," says Dr. Placek. "A few years ago, when I missed an area of my shoulder with sunblock, I got a minor sunburn, so I put on cortisone ointment, and it helped soothe and heal it," she says.