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:
- 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)
- Tenderness, which follows the redness.
- Blistering happens after extreme exposure.
- Peeling usually occurs in a week, regardless of whether there was blistering.
- 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.
Comments
Post a Comment