Sunburn remedies

Sunburns are normally 1st degree burns and can be 2nd degree as well. I’ve had both. Prevention is the best cure so be sure to follow all that advice about long sleeves, hats and sunscreen. But in the event you do get sunburned you can do the following to help with pain and treatment. Honey, I know it’s sticky and icky but it will seriously reduce your recovery time by up to half, maybe more. The vitamin E in honey is really good for the skin. Avoid applying anything with oil in it as this will only make the sunburn more painful by trapping the heat. Pain meds: if you are into taking pain meds for sunburns let me give you some advice I learned firsthand. Be careful what kind of pain med you use, some pain meds are known as vasodilators and will make the sunburn more painful. A vasodilator causes the vessels to dilate or become larger so more blood can flow, more blood means more body heat to the burned area, more body heat means, ouch, more pain. Some pain meds are vasoconstrictors, they do the opposite by constricting the vessels and making the burn a lot less hot! I can’t give you a list of all the pain meds out there that are dilators or constrictors but I can tell you Ibuprofen (Motrin) is a vasoconstrictor and will significantly decrease the pain from a sunburn.