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Health

19th Jul 2021

Got some sun yesterday? An Irish pharmacist shares the best ways to heal sunburn

Melissa Carton

Feeling the burn today?

We’ve has absolutely glorious weather in Ireland the last couple of weeks but the sun can be quite harsh on your skin.

Being extremely fair I know all too well the pain of sunburn and if you were unlucky enough to get burnt over the weekend the Fabulous Pharmacist has some great tips on how to heal a nasty sunburn.

Some of these tips you may already know ( I know I did due to my skin being a sunburn magnet even with sunscreen) but a couple of the tips are definitely lesser known and worth a try.

These tips include:

  1. Have regular cold baths or showers
  2. Drink plenty of water (stay hydrated)
  3. Apply lots of moisturiser to the area, it can be any moisturiser not just Aloe Vera
  4. Apply an over the counter hydrocortisone to the areas that are particularly sore
  5. Ibuprofen or aspirin can be used as anti-inflammatory pain reflief
  6. Paracetamol works well for pain relief too
  7. Cover any areas that have been burnt from the sun completely until it heals fully.
  8. Don’t burst any blisters

 

In the comments there were lots of other tips including keeping your after sun lotion in the fridge which is one of my favourite things to do.

I keep my sunscreen in the fridge too as it’s really refreshing and cooling on hot summer days like yesterday.

Of course when it comes to sunburn prevention is always best which is why you should always apply a good layer of broad spectrum sunscreen everyday (not just in the summer).

Ireland has some of the highest cases of skin cancer in Europe so it’s incredibly important to be sun safe this summer.

If you are giving pain relief medication to children make sure that the medication is suitable for their age.

Topics:

sunburn