How do I treat a sunburn? Preventing sunburn with sunscreen is the best way to treat sunburn, but if it's too late you can take aspirin to prevent inflammation and use a milk compress to soothe the skin and provide some pain relief.
Know what your skin can do, know how long you can stay out, wear proper clothing and use good sunscreen. We recommend sunscreen with an SPF of at least 30, and this is particularly important in the early spring when people are first going outside. Here in Wisconsin, people will take a trip to Texas or some place in the Sunbelt the first couple of days. They go outside; they are susceptible to sunburns. So the best treatment for sunburn is to prevent it in the first place because the sunburn is actually a chemical change in the skin. It's not like a thermal burn. It's actually a chemical change in the skin, and you have damaged the skin permanently if you sunburn. If they do get a sunburn, I have patients take two or even three aspirin every 3-4 hours as soon as they know they have a sunburn and that, to some degree, cuts down the inflammatory element of the sunburn. Secondly, for symptomatic relief, I think the best soothing release is the use of milk compresses. Using 1% or 2% ordinary milk, applied as a cool compress to the skin when it's sunburned, gives a great deal of symptomatic relief. And that's good for the state economy in Wisconsin too.
