I got a sunburn last Friday and the doctors in the ER told me that it was a second degree burn. Most of the pain went away but then it began blistering and habitually I began peeling the blisters away. Now I have bright red dry, scaly, tight skin underneath where I peeled the blisters away from and I'm in more pain than before. Please tell me that there is something that I can use to moisturize this skin and relieve the pain.
I peeled my severe sunburn and now it hurts worse. Help!?
cold water is the best first aid when you burn yourself - 20 minutes under the tap is ideal. NEVER ice or vinegar or milk or butter or green tea or mustard or toothpaste or sunscreen or semen or vaseline or tomatoes or vanilla extract or yogurt or sour cream or egg white or lavender oil or cocoa butter or salt or tea bags or potato or shaving cream or olive oil or baking soda or banana peel or petroleum jelly or whipped cream or avocado or bacon grease or corn starch or tumeric or lemon juice or curd or pickle juice - not until the skin is fully healed!
alcohol might help with the pain but it is a serious risk as it will dehydrate you - so don't drink any. ibuprofen or aspirin will help but larger burns are often accompanied by stomach ulcers, so tylenol/panadol is best for pain if you are gonna tough it out. drink plenty of water or energy drinks that don't have caffeine (gatorade)
i would advise that you cover the burnt area with white soft paraffin (white petroleum) or aqueous cream bp. (check the links below and see if you can find a local equivalent). wash the burn and reapply every 4-6 hours - cover with cling wrap if you wish to cover with clothes - this will stop your clothes getting covered with paraffin and maintains the burn.
cling wrap alone is ok if you can't get hold of any paraffin. it also acts as a protective artificial skin - helping retain moisture and protect from further damage and pain. cling wrap is cheap and clean off the roll. in Australia ambulances often use this when someone has been burnt. - please note that cling wrap isn't always practical, like on your face.
the paraffin imitates the natural oils, creating a seal stopping water leaving the body and reduces pain by protecting sensitised nerves. both of these factors improve healing - good stuff stays in, bad stays out - that is one job of healthy skin. aloe is good coz it remoisturises but that moisture can be quickly lost as the skin can't contain fluids. so put aloe on, and then the paraffin on over the top. if there is broken skin leave out the aloe - just paraffin.
http://www.doorone.com.au/xGS-Aqueous_Cr...
http://www.pharmacyonline.com.au/david-c...
http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/cvs/gateway/de...
email if you still have questions - send photos feedingthedogcustard@hotmail.com
finally if you are really worried go to a hospital that has a burns unit or plastic surgeons. serious sunburn i.e. blisters (and all other burns) should be seen by a burns trained doctor or nurse.
Reply:Vaseoline works great or soak in a bath with water and half a galloon of white vinegar.
Reply:that pain is because that is new skin that was burnt and is now being exposed, try using vitamin e lotion and aloe. if it is painfull take an advil or something with an anti-inflammatory in it. you need to moisturize your skin. take an old sock and put som plain oatmeal init and soak it in the tub then get in and soak for about a 1/2 hour then put some goodlotion on.
Reply:My husband said his mother use to use vinegar bath. He said it worked.
However, until your question, I didn't even know this. I have always used another old claim that I found works well for our six children. My 16 year old just went throught this twice...back to back burns. We used Ice Tea in a small bowl that was just made and not put into the refridgerator. She use to have heat in her skin so bad that it was still there days later. So this time I convinced her to trust me and allow me to wash down her skin with cotton balls soaked in the ice tea first (no lemon or sugar...this was homemade sun tea). This immediately took out the heat. Then I gently put on antibotic ointment in the places she had raw skin like your's sounds. She was afraid of me putting this on her because anything with a grease base holds the heat in and makes it worse. She had huge large areas of her body burned and I explained we would put CLEAN white cotton clothes on her and NO bandages after the ointment.
With her having 2nd and 3rd degree burns, as soon as the ointment was put on, she didn't feel the pain as much at all! With the cotton clothes on and sealed off from the air some, the pain was tremendously reduced to almost nothing.
Within an hour or so, she was in pain again as her skin absorded the ointment. She was so bad that the clothes didn't show greasy marks or any areas on the clothes where the ointment stuck to the clothes instead of helping her skin. So everytime the pain came back, she would get me to do the ointment again and we would change the clothes for new ones. Several times she woke me up crying saying the pain was back and her head hurt so bad and she couldn't put the ointment on herslf, so I got up and did it again. She was so bad she even had problems that caused her to vomit.
For three days we did this with me telling her to take a luke warm shower each morning using her hand to skim her body using a liquid soap (antibacterial), instead of using a wash cloth. Then we put the ointment on again with new clean white cotton clothes. By the 4th day, she was up and running but I told her we had to continue to do this even if she wanted to go out. Teens! She felt better and didn't want to stay in. I won and by the 8th day she had completely re-covered and had all her layers of new skin.
To my dismay, 3 weeks later she didn't listen and wanted to go out during the day while our sun was hot and high. She was out for 2 and 1/2 hours swimming and I warned her she could NOT afford to get another burn at all this year. She went swimming with a tee shirt on, hat and said she stayed "covered", and "..it was overcast mom".
Well she was burned twice as bad because this was all NEW skin! By 6 that night and as the sun continued to go down, she bloomed! I started the ice tea washing at about 4:00 pm when she came home and she insisted she WASN"T burnt again....but by 7 she was crying and NOW more agreeable to lay still as I continued to wash areas one at a time, of her body with the ice tea....then the ointment. That was about 4 weeks ago now and she is fine but NOW also listening to me and not going out into the sun for fun without covering better and wearing an SPF of 45.
She was so sure she would have scares especially on her face as her friends also got burnt and they were scared. She believes that because the ice tea and the tanic acid in the tea worked so well to reduce the heat faster, and then the ointment kept out infection and helped heal her skin! She didn't suffer as the others did because her skin was kept moist with the ointment and it didn't pull, rip, and burn as it healed. The others who also were burnt said the heat remained in their body more than a week, and they itched so bad! ....but my daughter was already on the road to new skin while they were still suffering with the heat, pain and ITCHING.....but she didn't even have the itching.
By the way....in case you do the tea....it can and does stain your skin and with the new skin coming in fast, it looks as if the dye or color of the tea will discolor your skin forever! My daughter was so worried she shouldn't have trusted mom. But this doesn't happen! The tea stains do NOT stay or discolor your skin forever. It didn't even stay by the fourth day after she was already growing new skin! But she sure was scared it would....especially since it stuck to the highs and lows of her face burns...kinda looking like a rash! I explained that it wasn't the tea that damaged her skin...but the sun and becasue the damage was so deep and bad, the stain in the tea showed it up to be seen! But as I said, this all went away by day 4. You won't need the tea washing if the heat is gone.
Good Luck
yoga
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