Sunburn....What is it? and What causes it?

Since last week we talked about the best tanning option, this week will we will be talking about if you choose to sunbathe. When you sunbathe, and do not protect your skin with sunscreen, there is a possibility that you will burn. This leads us to the questions, what is a sunburn? And what does it tell us?

Sunburn is damaged and inflamed skin from UV exposure; more exposure that your skin can handle. If you get a sunburn, then knowing how to take care of your inflamed skin will help you heal faster. Your skin type determines how much sub your skin can take. Obviously, the fairer your skin, the less sun you are able to tolerate (i.e. your ancestors lived in places with very weak sun and cooler temperatures, and were often covered in layers of clothing). You can’t change this. Fair skinned people with burn faster than people with olive or brown skin. But remember, every skin types can burn.

What causes sunburn is the wavelength of ultraviolet light and what they do to our skin.

UVB Rays are the major cause of a sunburn, which comes from the sun. The SPF in our sunscreen products describes the protection against these UVB rays. UVB rays intensity varies during the year and according to where you are in the world. This means that you need to know when the UVB rays are most intense to understand your sunburn risk.

UVB Rays are most intense in the summer; during the middle of the day between 10 am and 3 pm; the closer you are to the equator; and when they are reflecting off things like sand and snow (sand and snow reflect up to 85% of UVB making for really intense exposure). Clouds don’t really block much of the UVB rays and they penetrate into water too.

UVA Rays intensity does not vary like UVB. UVA rays are out all day, all year, everywhere in the world. They are reflected off sand and snow and penetrate into water.

There are a lot more UVA rays from the sun than there are UVB rays, but they still don’t cause most of our sunburn. This is because the UVB rays have a special efficiency at causing skin redness and so you burn first from UVB and get out of the sun before the UVA rays can burn you too!

Anyone who has been someone with a tanning bed burn, however, knows that UVA (the rays that are in a tanning bed) are capable of burning skin. In a tanning bed, the UVA burns skin because there is no UVB to burn you first. This means that in a tanning bed you are getting a lot of UVA, and this isn’t good either. UVA penetrates skin more deeply than UVB making it especially powerful at causing wrinkles and damage to the deep layers of your skin. It is why damage from tanning bed exposed skin looks different over time than sun exposed skin. On a skin exam, I see more freckling, wrinkling, and widespread skin thinning.

Sunburn is a normal reaction from overexposure to UV rays. A sunburn happens when an inflammatory cascade of event begins in the skin from the excessive UV exposure. Some of the cells of your skin actually die, called sunburn cells. The process involves the following:

1. Redness, which usually starts to show up 6 hours after excessive UVB exposure.  It peaks  about 12-24 hours later.  It can show up faster and be more severe in extreme sun exposure (i.e. really fair skin on a tropical beach)
2. Tenderness, which follows the redness.
3. Blistering happens after extreme exposure.
4. Peeling usually occurs in a week, regardless of whether there was blistering.
5. Really severe exposure will also cause skin swelling (edema), fever, chills, nausea, rapid heart rate and even dangerously low blood pressure.  This can last up to a week and can be a medical emergency.

A sunburn is like a sickness or poisoning.  Nothing good comes of it. When the skin is red and inflamed it’s weak and requires special care, which I’ll describe in the next post. Following a sunburn the skin heals but is forever damaged.  The more frequent and severe the burns, the more damage. It also means permanent sunburn freckles, skin thinning and increased risk for all skin cancers.  A sunburn isn’t just a trivial inconvenience or a necessary path to a tan, it’s a problem to be avoided.