The sun is harmful to our skin but we cannot renounce to it either as it provides us with a necessary dose of Vitamin D. The key is prevention, protecting our skin before exposure with appropriate sun creams.
The sun radiates various types of radiation such as heat, ultraviolet light type A, B and C, and not everything that radiates has the same degree of danger. What is clear is that there are people who are much more sensitive to having problems with sunlight because they protect themselves poorly from the sun or because they have very white skin and have phototypes one or two, light eyes or are blond or red-haired. People who have a very pale skin color are more sensitive to sunburn. What the sun does is help the skin to age prematurely, whether you are white or brown, and in the long run it is one of the factors that causes accelerated skin aging and, consequently, favors skin cancer.
Too much sun is not good but, we also need to go outside because we need the skin to synthesize vitamin D. The danger of the sun that people know is not related to allergies and rashes, but to skin cancer and skin aging.
Preventing sunburn
A sunburn is a burn, therefore, it has to be treated as a first-degree burn, sometimes even a second-degree burn. The important thing is prevention and avoiding burns, but once you have been burned, then you should treat the burns with anti-inflammatories, specific creams, etc. In order for a person not to get sunburned, he/she has to adapt the sunscreen filter to the type of skin he/she has. A person with very fair skin, in order not to get sunburned, must use a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor equal to or higher than 30. However, a person with very dark skin does not need such a high protection factor.
Hives or sunburn?
The way to differentiate between sunburn and hives is to analyze the affected area. Both solar urticaria and polymorphous light eruption are very itchy but do not hurt. In contrast, a skin burn hurts and can cause blisters that peel off, i.e., it is painful.
The treatment for rashes is different from that for burns. When a person has a solar urticaria or a polymorphous light eruption, the first thing to do is to prevent it by not exposing oneself to the sun or by exposing oneself with high protective filters. There is a technique to avoid sun rashes that consists of helping the person to get a tan. When a person acquires pigmentation, these sun intolerance rashes sometimes stop appearing. Antihistamines and photoprotectors have to be used for sun tolerance treatment.