Additional tips for sunburn: What you can do immediately

The most important things in brief

• There is a lot of excellent advice to follow to avoid sunburn.
• What are the symptoms and effects of a UV burn?
• What exactly should you pay attention to if you have actually gotten a sunburn?
• Apart from after sun and home remedies, there are a few insider tips.

We don't want to discuss at this point what measures you should take to prevent sunburn - you are certainly familiar with the suggestions and stick to them as best you can. But what if it really happened and you were careless or didn't have sunscreen with you? Then no raised index finger and no reminder will help. You just want to know what you can do to relieve the symptoms. On this page you will find out which insider tips apart from home remedies serve their purpose.

Sunburn - these are the symptoms

The logical consequences that are visible and noticeable directly on the skin: redness, inflammation, tension, burning, itching - and heated areas. Swelling is also within the realm of possibility. Severe sunburn can even blister the burned skin, which is really uncomfortable. More on treatment later, let's see what other symptoms can occur.

Someone who burns themselves properly in the sun may suffer from severe pain in the neck area or headaches. Chills and fever are also possible side effects, and nausea and vomiting can also occur. These latter signs in particular are often an indication that you have not only caught a severe sunburn, but sunstroke. If you're really miserable, even heat stroke is a possibility, and heat stroke is potentially fatal. In this case, you should see a doctor or a hospital urgently and very quickly.

Tips for treating the milder symptoms

So if you ever suffer from burned skin and the associated, milder symptoms and don't have any after-sun products at hand, the question arises: what to do? The first and always valid commandment in this case is to completely avoid any direct sunlight until the sunburn has completely subsided.

It is good to cool the affected area directly, for example by wetting a towel (cold water) and placing it on the burned skin. You should only use cream – preferably a moisturizing one – when the sunburn is slowly disappearing, but then use it regularly. But what about home remedies for sunburn?

What to do against sunburn? Our insider tips

If the medicine cabinet is empty and no after-sun items are available, and you have no way of implementing these tips, then you can still help yourself a little. Drink a lot of water, a lot of water - a sunburn deprives the body of fluid. The more the better, but it should be at least 1.5 liters. Take an aspirin if available, the acetylsalicylic acid it contains also thins the blood.

One very important tip: remove as much clothing as possible. Because every touch of the skin with the textiles can be very painful in severe burn cases. At the same time, you should avoid direct sunlight, see above. If you, as a woman, are trying to cover up any signs of sunburn, such as facial redness, with make-up: Don't do that under any circumstances. This irritates the burned skin even more and the healing process takes much longer.