Burn Injury Resource CenterProtection from sunburn:
- The sun is most intense between 10am-3pm, so try to limit exposure during these hours.
- Wear sunscreens with a sun protective factor (SPF) of at least 30.
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Sunburn (part II)
Articles Posted in Sunburn
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The Sun Can Cause Severe Burns Even in Late Summer, So Take Precautions
Here’s a story that provides more than one lesson in why you need to protect yourself with the best sunblock to avoid severe burns as you enjoy the late-summer sun.
In Texas, a man was hospitalized with second-degree burns when he fell asleep while outside in the sun without his shirt on. Police say it is likely that the man was intoxicated by alcohol or another substance, which is why the pain from his sunburn did not wake him up. And when he did finally wake up, his pain was so severe that he jumped into the lake next to the pier he was sunbathing on–and then had to be rescued!
Police officers were initially called by someone who saw the burning man on the pier, but by the time police arrived the man had jumped into the water. The police notified the local EMS/ambulance service, and that team successfully pulled the victim from the water. But they immediately noticed the severity of the victim’s burns, which included blisters all over his body from the 100-degree heat.
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Know Your Sunscreen and Sunblock Products to Avoid Burns
Sunscreens are chemicals that are designed to be absorbed by the skin in order to form a sun barrier so you do not get first-degree or even second-degree burns (blisters). Many of the chemicals have been broken down into tiny particles so that they can be sprayed or absorbed more easily. There is clear evidence that they prevent sunburn, but there is very little known about the safety of these chemicals and their effectiveness in reducing skin cancer from sun exposure. There are also studies whose statistical evidence shows that in some cases these chemicals may actually increase your risk of cancer. There are three primary concerns with the chemicals in sunscreen:
1) They are free-radical generators which breakdown the DNA in cells and potentially make them more prone to cancer.
2) They often have strong estrogenic effects, meaning the chemicals could actually interfere with normal sexual development.
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Learn About Skin Protection to Avoid Sunburns This Summer
A recent article from the Associated Press addressed exactly the type of information we want to provide to you each week in this blog. Here is a summary:
About a third of adults get sunburns each year, and most of those people actually get more than one, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a bigger problem than pain, because sunburns are believed to increase risk of the most serious type of skin cancer, melanoma. There aren’t good figures on how often children get sunburned, but their tender skin can burn especially easily.
While water and sand reflect ultraviolet (UV) rays and make sunburns worse, it’s not just the beachgoer who’s at risk. A sunburn can hit anyone–from kids playing ball to their parents watching, to the person who does gardening in the backyard.
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Tanning Too Often Can Cause Burns, and Even Cancer
CBS News in New York ran a story this week about a new proposed law that would make New York the first state to ban indoor tanning for minors.
While this might seem to be a bit too much government intervention for some people, think about this: The issue is rising rates of skin cancer. A 2010 study found regular use of tanning beds can triple the risk for melanoma, the most deadly form of the disease. The risk was quadruple for people using high-pressure tanning beds, which give off more UVA radiation.
“It can be horrific,” said Harvey Weisenberg, who is sponsoring the bill in the state assembly. “This is a cancer-causing process. Teenagers do it for proms. They do it for special occasions. There is lots of evidence” of harm, he claims.
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Severe Burns from Radiation: Lessons from Cancer Treatments
With Japan suffering through a national health scare over the leaking of radiation from its tsunami-damaged nuclear power plants, the topic of radiation sickness and radiation burns has made it front and center in the newspapers and TV news programs.
But the most common sources of radiation burns are the sun, and treatments for cancer. First, repeated sunburns means repeated radiation exposure, which damages skin cells so much that the possibility of getting carcinoma, melanoma, or other skin cancer is significant among people who do not take precautions to protect their skin from the sun.
Ironically, for people who have breast, cancer, colon cancer, and other types, radiation therapy is often used to stop malignant tumors from growing and spreading, and eventually killing them. But this treatment often results in radiation burns.