Okay so I have bad sunburn, really bad. Now, after a couple days the burning kind of let off, and now it's been itching like mad since yesterday. I can't stop it.

Yesterday my mom gave me some "Solarcaine Cool Aloe Burn Relief Gel" and so I tried it. It seemed to work, but later in the day it came back. I put more on then went to bed. Now, it came back again today, so I put it on again. It didn't really go away after putting it on, and a couple of times it seemed to be worse. It's this weird random itching and isn't there all the time.

Anyway, I researched the ingredients: propylene glycol, some sort of alcohol that can be irritable to skin...isopropyl alcohol, similar to before...and diazolidinyl urea, supposedly rated IARC 1 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a "probable human carcinogen" by the USA Environmental Protection Agency.

Looking up carcinogen reveals it as an agent of some sort that is involved in the promotion of cancer.


So am I kind of fucked? And what should I do? My mom is dumb and is all "well it's still fine" when I'm really skeptical here.


Any ideas?

Not yet, only if you use it everyday of your life, you have more chances of getting cancer from the sun you took than from that thing

Okay, haha. I was just a little panicked there...especially since the one ingredient is banned in Europe...

But, what do I do as far as the itching? It makes me wanna rip my skin off.

Here are some things you can try:  Sunburn remedies  I've tried a few of them in the past and have had somewhat decent success with them.

get aloe vera (the plant)

Solarcane spray was what I used when I burned my hand, I don't know how it differs from the gel.  Maybe give it a try?

yeah I'm sure there is some aloe lotion you can get at the grocery store or something that should work

Yeah get actual pure aloe gel.  Also just a tidbit of info, not that it's extremely bad or anything but Proplyne Glycol is in anti-freeze.

Also lol alternative medicine.

Caladryl lotion gel is what I've been using on my poison ivy, apparently it can be used for other skin issues too.  It's pretty good shit.

Agh, don't use any kind of anesthetics (basically, -caine containing) medications on sunburn as they can be very sensitizing and make you allergic to them later on. (It really sucks that drug companies market anesthetics for sunburn because you're worse off using them then not using them at all...)

Here's what I would recommend (as a pharmacy student, so there's some merit in what I'm going to say):

First of all, you should see your doctor if you're experiencing any of the following:

Severe pain
Severe blistering
Headache
Confusion
Nausea or vomiting
Fainting

Really bad causes of sunburn can actually cause dehydration and get your electrolytes out of whack, so I definetely advise keeping hydrated with fluids while you're experiencing this.
 
Basically, for self-care:
- Cool compresses, where you take a small towel and soak it with equal parts of milk and water, then place it on your burn may suffice. You may also use cold compresses with Burrows solution.
- Cool (not ice cold) baths may help.
- Avoid bath salts, oils, and perfumes because these may produce sensitivity reactions. Avoid scrubbing the skin or shaving the skin. Use soft towels to gently dry yourself after bathing, and definetely don't rub the sun burnt skin.
- Use a light, fragrance-free skin moisturizer to get some more moisture into your skin.
- Pain relief medications, such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen will help to control the pain you're no doubt experiencing. If you decide to go with ibuprofen (Advil) make sure to take it with food since it is hard on your stomach and can increase your risk of getting ulcers. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is much milder in that you don't have to take it with food, and that's what I'd recommended. It's not an anti-inflammatory like advil, but you don't need an anti-inflammatory in this instance, only pain relief, and Tylenol will do just that for you.
- Aloe vera gel does provide a cooling effect on the affected skin and helps moisturize it, but it's effect is pretty short lived (usually up to 30 minutes), so you have to keep reapplying it and it does get kind of messy.

You also mentioned that you're experiencing a lot of itchiness lately. It could be due to the natural process of shedding the burnt skin, or it could be due to the fact that you've been applying this solarcaine and have developed an allergic reaction to it. For the relief of itchiness, I'd recommend diphenhydramine (Benadryl) - it's an anti-histamine so it'll help to reduce the itchiness. The downside with it (or it could be seen as a benefit depending on how you look at it) is that it causes drowsiness. What I would do is take a dose of it at bedtime and that will help you to sleep and not be so itchy. During the day you could try taking some (maybe less than the usual dose) and see how it affects you. Some people are more affected by the drowsiness than others, it's all individual.

SO, in summary, here's my recommendation:

- Acetaminophen (Tylenol) [for ][/for] - follow the directions on the bottle. It's usually 1-2 tablets every 3-4 hours as needed.
- Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) [for ][/for] - 25-50 mg three to four times daily (max dosage = 300mg per day). It'd start off taking a dose at night (50mg), and then trying a dose of 25 mg in the day and see how it affects you. Use it as needed for the itchiness.

If the itching becomes worse and doesn't go away after using the Benadryl go to your doctor.

I'm not knowledgeable about this kind of thing so someone can correct me but since Caladryl is basically Calamine + Benadryl, it could very well help you both in the way Benadryl will and as a quick soothing fix for the skin.  However, you apparently shouldn't take oral Benadryl with it, so be careful.


And if this is actually a bad idea then ignore me!

I don't know much about biochemistry, buty I do know that there are two things speciafically designed by nature to clean, heal and rehydrate human skin: saliva and milk. There is a reason we instinctively bring an open cut to our mouths, and that is because our saliva contains biogens that are useful in soothing pain, fighting harmful bacteria, and cleaning our skin. And milk is just all around really good for you. Because its an organic compound that serves the specific purpose of building and nourishing the tissue of young things, I think that if you were to drink more milk your skin would heal faster. So, I dunno, start spitting on your open sores, I guess. Drink a lot of water, a lot of milk, take an antihistamine for the itching (ie benadryl) and you should be fine in a couple of days.

I'm not knowledgeable about this kind of thing so someone can correct me but since Caladryl is basically Calamine + Benadryl, it could very well help you both in the way Benadryl will and as a quick soothing fix for the skin.  However, you apparently shouldn't take oral Benadryl with it, so be careful.


And if this is actually a bad idea then ignore me!

Topical benadryl is a bad idea overall because it can be sensitizing. In this case where there's already a suspected sensitizing agent having been used it just wouldn't be good to add another potential culrupt to the mix that could make things worse.

Well yeah, not topical antihistamine, that stuff burns your skin right off.

Ok, so Benadryl?

Hmm. Yeah cause right now I've stopped using that Solarcaine stuff and I'm not really itching right now.


Also, Mateui, I don't have any burning any more. There's like 2 sensitive spots still (shoulders and top of my back, if they get rubbed), but they don't burn. Also, the itching is like random TINY spots on the top of my back and shoulders, where they burn for a couple seconds every once in a while but they REALLY hurt. I guess it could be shedding though.

But yeah, no burning, just itching. It feels like the itches burn though, for a bit. Also, none of those bulleted effects apply to me, so I'm good. Just itching.

hey sweet. i have a pretty bad sunburn that is slowly going away.. this topic would have been helpful 3 days ago.

I've been too lazy to go to the store and buy aloe vera, which I already knew about, so I've been putting Nivea cream on it twice a day to moisturize it and it's been helping a lot!

Other than that all I've been doing is keeping the affected area completely out of the sun and trying to minimize agitation to the area.

I would say use a mixture of powdered gold bond with Aloe Gel. I have an allergy to the sun and this helped me out to the max, the itching, redness, even the rashy bumps went away a lot faster using this method. (MY skin takes almot 1 month without any lotions or pills to clear my sun rashes, and with that mixture it took just over 9 days.)

Wear sunscreen any time your out in the sun when your sunburned. I use some kind of helioplex sunscreen/moisterizer when I'm doing skin acid treatments.