Our Sunburn Remedies

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I tell myself that it was bound to happen eventually, but it doesn't make me feel any better. Yesterday R acquired his very first sunburn. We went swimming with some friends at the city pool. I applied and reapplied sunscreen, but either I didn't apply it well enough, or he rubbed it away from around his eyes. He now has a pink raccoon mask. He isn't complaining with it, but I'm still experiencing guilt. It didn't show up well in any of the pictures I took. I promise it's considerably worse in real life and I'm not just overreacting. Well, maybe I am a little. But it's because of the guilt! I hate that its on such delicate skin. Also, not only does R wear glasses, but we also patch his stronger eye for eight hours a day. The patch is hard enough on such sensitive skin and we often have problems with it.  So it looks like we'll be taking a few days off from wearing his eye patch.  He wasn't the only one that burned though. Somehow I got sun poisoning. I even wore sunscreen! I'll spare anyone that might be reading those pictures. So I spent the night (in pain) looking up sunburn remedies and getting condolences and advice from friends.

Here are the ingredients for our sunburn remedies. We have an aloe plant that we keep for all types of burns, a bottle of aloe gel, a cucumber, a bottle of yellow mustard, and some chamomile tea. The aloe plant is perfect for R's eyes, but I would need way more than this little plant to help me. I was using the aloe gel but it wasn't helping enough.  One of my friends recommended the mustard, against the advice of  another friend who said he had learned that mustard was just an old wives tale. I was desperate though, so at 2 in the morning I was taking a shower with a bottle of mustard. I can say, quite honestly, that it helped me significantly. It didn't take away all the pain, but it lessened it greatly. I could sleep! I have since read that it's the vinegar in the mustard so I plan on using that as well.

The chamomile tea is for R's eyes. I made myself a big cup of tea, and let the tea bags cool in the refrigerator before placing them over his eyes. He liked how they felt squishy and said they made his eyes feel good. Although, he also said they didn't feel bad before.

We also tried the cucumber slices on his eyes. Even though he's not complaining about the pain, I'd really like for his skin to heal as quickly as possible. I don't want to take off too many days from the patching, but I don't want to patch and it tear his skin more easily because of the sun damage. He's being a trooper about all of my home remedies. I think he's even enjoying them.

Do you have a favorite sunburn remedy?

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