What to do if you get burned on vacation

What mea­sures are impor­tant to take to avoid over­heat­ing and pro­tect your skin from ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion in the sum­mer heat? Beau­ti­cian and plas­tic sur­geon Olga Ovaneso­va told 5‑tv.ru about this and oth­er use­ful rec­om­men­da­tions.

How not to get sunburned on the beach

Since ultra­vi­o­let is radi­a­tion, it is impor­tant to pre­vent direct sun­light from reach­ing the deep­er lay­ers of the skin. Drink water to cool your skin and make it more hydrat­ed.

The most sav­ing drink in the heat will be clean drink­ing water. Try to drink 1.5 glass­es of non-car­bon­at­ed water every hour. For vari­ety, you can add mint leaves, lemon and ice cubes to it. To pre­vent dehy­dra­tion, avoid drink­ing alco­holic cock­tails and car­bon­at­ed drinks with sug­ar con­tent. Con­sump­tion of hot drinks like cof­fee and tea is bet­ter to reduce so that caf­feine does not cre­ate an extra load on the heart.

Sun­glass­es, creams and hats are “faith­ful helpers” that will pro­tect the body from over­heat­ing. A fun way to cool off is to spray each oth­er with water from a spray bot­tle. Chil­dren will espe­cial­ly like it.

How to understand what is burned

First of all, accord­ing to the expert, it is impor­tant to pre­vent the like­li­hood of heat and sun­stroke. And it doesn’t mat­ter at all how long you stay out­doors — 15 min­utes under the scorch­ing sun is enough to expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive con­se­quences.

Signs of sun or heat stroke:

• weak­ness in the body;
• headache;
• nau­sea;
• dizzi­ness;
• skin red­ness and blis­ters.

If you expe­ri­ence these symp­toms, be sure to con­sult a doc­tor.

What to do if you get burned on the beach

It is best to imme­di­ate­ly go into the shade — in a ven­ti­lat­ed room. The most effec­tive rem­e­dy that will help low­er the body tem­per­a­ture is a cool show­er. A tow­el moist­ened with water can also be applied to the fore­head.

If blis­ters have already begun to appear on the skin, then this, accord­ing to the doc­tor, usu­al­ly speaks of the sec­ond degree of burns. For this rea­son, such dam­age must be del­i­cate­ly treat­ed with anti-inflam­ma­to­ry drugs.

“In some cas­es, anti­his­t­a­mines can be used to reduce swelling in the affect­ed areas of the skin. Pan­thenol-con­tain­ing creams will also help main­tain the water bal­ance,” explained Olga Ovaneso­va.

The doc­tor empha­sized that oils should not be applied in case of severe burns and blis­ters on the skin.

“No oils can be applied. Some­one starts peel­ing off these blis­ters, which in no case should be done. The first step is to pre­vent infec­tion — treat with anti-inflam­ma­to­ry drugs, but do not burn with alco­hol. That is, chlorhex­i­dine aque­ous solu­tion is suf­fi­cient. At the same time, all manip­u­la­tions should be light, not injure the skin and be aimed at cool­ing.

On aver­age, a small burn can be neu­tral­ized with­in 5–6 days, the doc­tor spec­i­fies. If, dur­ing expo­sure to the sun, a per­son is bad­ly burned up to the appear­ance of blis­ters, then the marks on the skin will heal with­in 2–3 weeks.