Sunburn.

[Angel]

I only got 5 hours of sleep last night. I have one of the most painful sunburns I've ever had - my shoulders, my face, my chest, even the lines around my legs where my shorts were. (What do you call a girl's two-piece when the bottom part is shorts?)

Aloe isn't really helping, and sitting in front of the air conditioner makes me too cold. Any advice or remedies?

[Ryudo Lee]

Have you tried calamine lotion?

[Tezkat]

I picked up a nice aloe and lidocaine afterburn lotion last time I was in Hawaii. Not sure how easy it is to get elsewhere... (I've also read that some doctors recommend against the lidocaine thing due to risk of irritation and allergic reaction, but I think the topical painkiller effect is totally worth it. ) Shea butter is also nice to keep the affected areas soft and moisturized. Be gentle with burned skin. Don't rub or scratch at it.

Painkillers, cold baths, moisturizing lotion... there's not that much more you can do. The damage has already been done, so you just have to make yourself comfortable and wait for your body to heal itself, I'm afraid.

[Kryptic]

I know the term for those shorts is "board shorts" - or at least that's what I call them. I just wear 'em with my one-piece though. *shrugs*.

I feel for ya. I'm really light skinned, and I live in the desert. I don't burn. I crisp. 

Heavy Duty Aloe Vera. Yup, yup. And don't move around a lot. Movement just makes it all come back.

And if anyone has scabs, the best treatment is going swimming. Chlorine Water pwns scabs.

I also get eaten alive by mosquitoes. It's evil. I end up just spending the entire summer inside. It's healthier. I have seriously had a sunburn on my feet when I wore Sandal-Sneakers - I had tiger-striped feet. It was weird.

[Zorro]

Vicodin and sleep.  Consult your doctor for something to kill the pain or knock you out for about three days.  If it serious enough you may need treatment for second degree burns.

[rabid_fox]

Germolene. Bollocks to folk remedies. Germolene is the answer.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Just make sure no one slaps you on the back as hard as they possibly can, that hurts like a bitch.

[Miaka]

Oh, god, i've has a sunburn like that.. except over my entire back and the back of my legs...
Wearing a shirt was painful, long pants were even worse, and sitting in a car just about brought me to tears.

I didn't really do anything about it... I'm bad with sunburns, 'cause I don't get them most of the time.. I don't burn much, but I don't tan much either, so I really don't have too much edvice for you. 

[Netami]

Any advice or remedies?

Yeah. Get the &@^! out of the SUN! Use lotion next time. Or don't go wherever the hell you went. Skin cancer is not worth it, this is a warning shot from the giant burning ball of gas in the sky.

[Fuyudenki]

I use Vick's Vap-O-Rub, though anything with camphor in it should work just as well.  The thing is that Camphor is of the Mint family, so a few seconds after you apply the goo, it starts evaporating, and drags anything even remotely resembling heat away, with it.(I've ended up near-shivering, and I don't get cold easily.)

After the first couple of applications, you'll start rubbing off grains of something.  I think they may be skin flakes, but I don't really know.  Also, after a few applications, the friction from rubbing starts to really burn, but then, the cooling effect kicks in, and it's all better.

Regular application of the stuff can cure even a severe sunburn in a day or two, and here's the big thing, your skin never starts to peel!.  The point is to keep it cold.

I seem to have been using this particular remedy for long enough that my skin has figured out what to do when it gets burned, because the last couple of burns I had went away on their own without peeling within 2 days.  I recall it used to take something along the lines of a week or two, culminating with the skin peeling off like...

well, like a sunburn.

[Angel]

Any advice or remedies?

Yeah. Get the &@^! out of the SUN! Use lotion next time. Or don't go wherever the hell you went. Skin cancer is not worth it, this is a warning shot from the giant burning ball of gas in the sky.

Normally, I HATE going in the sun just for this reason! I'm Black Irish, which means I'm really light-skinned, which means I burn like crazy if I don't have SPF 15 lotion over every last part of my body.  But I was on a boat with my friend, and I wanted to get out and enjoy the weather for once. Seriously, I can even see finger marks where I missed with the lotion. How I missed, I'll never know.
...
Sorry, Netami. I just got a little sensitive.

My face is better now; my right shoulder is still stingy. Can't really avoid moving my arms. Ibuprofen and lots of aloe vera seems to be working. My mom suggested avoiding milk, and you know what? It works.

[techmaster-glitch]

Mom always knows best

[Eowyn]

What Eowyn types-hhhhttttttttdssssssgrenhvfjk
What Eowyn says- HOT! HOT! *blows at screen* in in in, nooooooooo!
What Eowyn means- some kind of cross between agreeing in disliking the sun and sympathy to the burned. also she states she wants to stay inside today and does not want to go to the park when she gets up tomorrow because she just hid her hat and threw her sunglassed down the stairs.