Beauty Tips For Body Care
I would probably have a dollar.Let me preface this by saying I used sunscreen. I used SPF 30 the first time I went outside, and SPF 50 roughly every 1.5 to 2 hours while outside, over the course of two days. My total amount of time in direct sunlight would have probably amounted to about 6-7 hours across those two days. Now to the real reason I'm posting; my face.I'm very fair skinned. I have blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, and I have very faint freckles across my nose and forehead that are really only visible when I've had ample sun time. I've never burned severely, except for one time I went to D.C. And forgot lotion, but I was only burned on very small parts of my shoulders, since I was wearing jeans and a hat. Now I have freckles there that won't go away. I'm okay with that. Even as a kid, spending countless hours outside in my backyard, or at the shore playing in the water or the sand, my burns were never bad. They happened, if turn pink and maybe peel after a couple days, but being the blindingly white german girl that I am, I always applied sunscreen over SPF 30.Last weekend was no different. I used SPF 30 before walking to the beach, and applied a higher SPF while at the beach simply because that's what we grabbed. What was different this time, was that I used SPF30 from an aerosol can. The 50 was normal lotion. Instead of spraying sunscreen on myself, i must have sprayed straight up aerosol on my body, which gave me 0 coverage from the sun. After playing in the water and waves for about 1.5 hours, i sat in my beach chair, applied some SPF 50 lotion, and chatted with the family for a few minutes before walking back to the house for lunch.When we got to the house, I went to the bathroom to rinse my hair and skin, and noticed I was a bit pink. No big deal, it didn't look too bad at the time, and I could see more freckles than anything, so I told myself to apply more of the 50 and be more careful. Before eating lunch, I mentioned to my boyfriend that we shouldn't use the 30, since I got a bit burned and were both very fair skinned. We agreed, and stuck with the 50. We ate, hung out in the AC for a bit, and went back to the beach for about two more hours. Once again, I applied the SPF 50.After going back to the house for dinner, we spent the rest of the day indoors doing family things, until the next day when we went back to the beach at around 1pm. Again, we applied the 50 multiple times. That beach day went for about 4 hours or so, mainly on the water or playing games in the sand. I've never been one to lay on the sand and do nothing, I can't sit still at all!! The day passed with lots of sun and sunscreen, and the only change in my color was from my freckles that we're getting darker. After dinner, I shower and investigated my face, as I'm sure we all do.I noticed a couple raised bumps on my forehead, asked my boyfriend if he noticed them, and he didn't. So I figured I was just being paranoid, and went about my business. The burn that I got the day before still wasn't bad, and I had some pretty nifty tan lines that amazed me since I'm always so pale.Then the horror began.The next morning, we are packing up to leave, and as I'm brushing my teeth, i notice my forehead seems a little swollen. It was nothing dramatic, but it was noticeable to me. I was surprised, but thought maybe when I was being manhandled by the waves, I hit my head or something, and that was the reaction. My boyfriend's mom noticed it, but she had the same thought. As the day went on, consisting mainly of driving 5 hours home, I'd check my reflection and notice the bump. For some reason it looked bigger each time. I started to worry, and asked my boyfriend about it. Being the typical oblivious boyfriend, he said he barely noticed anything, and that I was probably just tired from the weekend. In a way, he was correct.It wasn't until I got home, took a brief nap, woke up, and saw my face in my usual lighting that I realized something wasn't quite right. The swelling definitely increased, and it appeared to be migrating across my forehead. It wasn't painful, but my forehead felt tight, and when I raised my eyebrows, I could feel pressure. I increased my water intake, applied some aloe and coconut oil, and used a cool, wet towel to help with swelling. Even overnight I kept the towel on my forehead, hoping it would help the swelling because I had to work the next morning.Little did I know, I would wake up more swollen. This time, my forehead and temple were swollen. Over the course of the work day, the swelling got worse, and began to migrate down and across my face. People did double-takes, thought I was a sister of mine, laughed, exclaimed, pretended not to notice, you name it! I laughed with them because I knew how ridiculous I looked, and it wasn't something I was self conscious about; everyone knew what I really looked like, and even if it did shock me every time I went by a mirror, there was no point in crying over it. My favorite part was probably the looks I got as I cut into fresh aloe and rubbed a pant all over my face!I thought that was the worst of it, but again, I would be proven wrong. I went home feeling silly, and just wanting to be in bed. I was exhausted, and even though I was basically ok with how I looked, I can't say it didn't upset me a little. I finally slept, for about 12 hours, too.The morning brought so much embarrassment and difficulty seeing, that I called out of work; something I never do. I had been documenting the progression on Snapchat, making unicorn jokes and jokes about how my boyfriend gets to have a different looking girl everyday, but this morning was beyond any jokes. I could barely open my right eye. It was oozing a little, and I could see my upper and lowered eye lids because of how swollen they were. Although appearances aren't extremely important to me, I wanted to cry. I sent a Snapchat out to some of the people I work directly with, and the response was the same across the board. Stay home and see a doctor. So I did.It wasn't until the next day, now 4 or 5 days after the initial "burn" that I did see the doctor, but she prescribed me oral antibiotics, steroids, and an ophthalmic drop. She had never seen a reaction like this in the past. As a matter of fact, when she entered the room, she apologized and backed out, before realizing that she was, in fact, in the correct room. The antibiotics were a precaution for an infection she thought I might have, and the steroid was for the swelling. She was extremely hesitant to give both a steroid and two antibiotics at once because of the immune suppression that comes with steroids, but she knew this was serious.At the end of the day, we decided I had sun poisoning. The swelling on my forehead had drifted down my face to my eyes, leaving cuts and dry skin in it's path. My face basically stretched so much, it cracked. After two more days of looking like a monster and staying out of work, I was finally well enough to return to work and get back to my normal routine. No longer was I suffering from extreme headaches in the back of my head from light, or getting exhausted after vacuuming a room. I wasn't retaining five extra pounds of water anymore, and I no longer walked into walls because I couldn't see. I got my face back!!Today, my skin is healing. It's been exactly a week since I started to see improvement, and while my skin is still relatively dry, the scabs are healing nicely, and I've upgraded to an SPF100 that I apply every single day. Every once in a while I'll get a headache similar to those I got while I was a human puffer fish, and unfortunately my vision is not as great as it was either. I find it difficult to read things from a closer distance than before; something im hoping will correct itself in the future.As my skin heals, and I monitor it, I'm terrified of skin cancer. The burn I received wasn't nearly as bad as ones I've gotten in the past, which weren't bad at all, and my skin wasn't painful either, but the fact that my skin reacted the way it did has me terrified.I guess my story serves as a PSA and well as an inquiry. What do I do next? I'm using the SPF100 as basically my new makeup primer, even if I haven't worn make up in over a week, and I'm on the look out for any changes in pigmentation on my forehead. But, should I got to the dermatologist right now? Will they be able to see anything so early? Or should I wait until I'm completely healed and can pin point new spots?I've never heard of this happening to anyone before, and I've always been careful about the sun, so please, make sure you use proper protection. Even if sun poisoning didn't seem so bad to me, it's still a huge problem in the long run, and I wish I had used that SPF 50 from the start.TL;DR Wore sunscreen, got sun poising, now what? I have pictures of the progression of the swelling that I'll probably post in the comments section so y'all can see what I'm referring to.
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by TheRogueHealer
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