Natural Sunburn Remedy

First off I must say that I am not a doctor nor am I dispensing medical advice. I am simply telling you what I have used for years, what I am trying now and what others have been recommending for sunburn.

If you are severely sunburned then you should seek a doctor.

Now, here is what I usually use and what I am using now due to this being the worst sunburn that I have ever had.

I usually just apply vinegar with a cotton ball. It is what my Mom always used and it has worked very well for us.

This time because of how tender my skin is I have applied the vinegar by using a spray bottle filled with white vinegar.. For my face I have been spraying some on my fingertips and very gently apply it to my sunburn.

Sunburn remedies for inside to help your outside:

I have been using cold compresses to help to take the heat out. You can use cold water on washcloths, a water bottle filled with cold water or you could keep a spray bottle filled with water in your refrigerator to use for this.

I started taking Vitamin C right away. Since vitamin C is water soluble and any extra just gets flushed out of your body I prefer to err on the side of too much rather than not enough.

I took 7 500 mg tablets at first and then have taken 3-4 more often. I started with 3-4 more every 15 minutes and as the pain has lessened and I felt that I could I have slowly decreased that to 3-4 every hour or so.

Now, when you take too much vitamin C you can get diarrhea. This lets you know that you can decrease your dosage if you haven’t already.

I didn’t decrease my dosage right away as I wanted to use this as a way to get the toxins out of my system as fast as possible. I am not recommending that you do this I am just saying that this is what I did due to the severity of my burn.

I started drinking a LOT of water. I drank a 32 ounce bottle of water right away and drank more as often as possible after that.

This will help to re-hydrate your body as well as remove toxins.

This is VERY IMPORTANT! If you could possibly have sun poisoning then it is even more so. Lots of water and vitamin C will help to get these toxins out of your system so that your body can heal.

If you have any vitamin E you can also take a capsule or 2 of that each day.

That is for the inside.

Now what can you apply to help your sunburn?

Sunburn remedies to apply to your skin:

First of all cold water in some form to reduce the burn.

Vinegar is fantastic for sunburn. It is great to reduce the severity of the burn as it takes the heat out.

After applying cold and then vinegar the next step is aloe vera.

Repeat these 3 steps often. If your burn is quite bad you may want to do this on an almost continuous basis at first.

Vitamin E can also be applied to the burn. I have used it when I burned my hand while making apple butter. I always knew when it was time to apply more as the burn would start to hurt again but right after applying more vitamin E the pain would go away.

Years ago my Mom burned her arm severely when removing a roast from the oven. She didn’t have any medical insurance and was still paying for when she had her hysterectomy so she begged me to help her.

I finally told her I would but that if at any time I thought that it wasn’t getting better that she would HAVE to go to the doctor anyway.

I carefully cooled the burn and then cleaned the wound morning and night. I applied aloe and vitamin E often throughout the day. I also made sure that she was taking her vitamins and eating healthy while also drinking lots of water.

Her arm healed very well and the tissue started filling back in. A nurse later told her that she had burned it down to the bone and that it was a 3rd degree burn (I believe that it was 3rd- it was the worst burn you can get) The nurse remarked at how well it had healed.

I am NOT recommending that you do this. I am telling you this simply to show you that my methods have worked for even a severe burn like my Mom’s and are working for my bad sunburn.

Now, before I left the craft show yesterday I had pretty much everyone giving me home remedies for sunburn.

Many mentioned vinegar- which I already knew.

One lady told me to rub raw potato on the sunburn and said that it would take the burn right out.

I decided to try it because she seemed so adamant that it works.

I rubbed some raw potato on part of my sunburn a little bit ago.

At first it seemed to burn more buy then calmed down a bit.

Shortly afterward I looked in the mirror. I saw black gunk on my face which I washed off. I then noticed that the skin where I had applied the potato was swollen.

When I mentioned this to my son he brought up that the potato might have actually been pulling toxins from the burn and that that could be what the black gunk was and he wondered if that also explained the swelling in those areas.

I don’t know. It sounds logical but I have to work tomorrow and while going to work looking like a raccoon is bad enough I REALLY don’t want to go with my face all swollen too.

I have decided to wait and see. If it seems like the potato areas feel and look a lot better than the rest of my sunburn then tomorrow after work I may apply more.

Someone else mentioned using teabags to take the burn out.

You use black tea -not an herbal one. Steep six bags in four cups of hot water, cool, and apply it to the affected area with a cotton ball.

Emu oil is often used in the treatment of burns and so using a product with emu oil might also work for sunburns.

Whatever method you try you should always be sure to drink plenty of water and even for as moderate sunburn vitamin C would still be a good idea.

In my research I have found that vitamin C is good for burns, pain and to remove poison’s and toxins from the body.

This is not telling you to take vitamin C if you have been poisoned but vitamin C and water should not interfere with medical treatment and would be something that you could take so that it could start to work while you are on your way to the doctor or hospital.