You blistering boil on mankind's butt!

I am so upset right now, and the awful part is that it’s something that I could’ve avoided.
Last week my son’s daycamp went to the beach. My whole family told me not to send him (he’s fish-belly white), but I was too stupid to listen. Slathered him up with spf 45, and sent him off with two tubes of sunscreen.
Predictable outcome - he came home burnt to a crisp. Red, swollen, now he has blisters all over his back and shoulders. He still has fever, cries constantly, can’t sleep, and is miserable. We have to hold him down just to put on aloe vera.

Where the blank were his counselors?! Did none of these jackasses even think to tell this group of 7-8 year-olds to stop and reapply sunscreen during the day? Holy Mother Mary on a pogo stick, were they all blind?! I’m sure they were all properly covered up - the hell with the kids!

I don’t know what to do - he’s in his room crying again, and I can’t make him feel better! I feel like the worst mother in the world. Feel free to pit me for being such an asshole.

I hate the summer. :mad:

That’s terrible.

However, he’ll at least have fun in a week or so when the pain subsides and he starts peeling like an onion. It almost makes up for it.

Noxema. Slather him liberally with Noxema whenever he gets too uncomfortable. Miracle cure. Alternate with aloe to promote clean healing.

This might seem like a dumb question but you didn’t mention it in your OP, so…

Has he seen a doctor? Did his doctor not give him anything? I would think some kind of cream and a pain reliever would be in order.

If not Noxema, Desitin Creamy. Probably the same effect as Noxema, but also a miracle cure.

I’ve used Solarcane before with some success and anti-inflamitories like Advil or asprin. FWIW, I’m a fair skinned redhead who grew up in Florida and I’ve had multiple blistering sunburns. You get over them quickly and then the fun is peeling off the big swathes of skin. It doesn’t excuse them but I bet the camp couselors are probably fried as well…

Arm and Hammer baking soda in a bath helps a bit too. Make sure he drinks copious amounts of water. I might consult his doctor for any advice he might have to help him sleep, there might be some kind of Tylenol he could take to help or a pain killing cream you could apply before bed. Poor guy. :frowning: I would also most definitely take this up with the higher ups in his daycamp. If there are no rules regarding this, there ought to be. Good luck.

Poor little guy. :frowning: It’s scant consolation, but at least he’s learned (even if it had to be the hard way) to wear sunscreen.
And I do wonder what those counselors were thinking. Didn’t they notice him (or any other kid) turning red? Maybe they couldn’t have stopped him getting burnt, but they could’ve prevented blisters. That sounds like a horrible sunburn.

I’ve spoken to his doctors twice, and they said to just keep giving him Tylenol, and covering him with Aloe Vera. Once the blisters break open (lord, there are so many of them!), we should use Neosporin or Bacitracin.

Thanks, everyone else, for the other suggestions. My son has other medical issues (such as asthma), and strong smells sometimes set off attacks.

I wish I could take all his blisters and pain away, and divide them equally between myself and those carbuncle-brained counselors!

Exactly, that is why I said Wallet needed to go up the chain of command with this, that is a serious sunburn, and very noticeable and he should not have been allowed to get to that state. Obviously the counslers either didn’t follow the rules, or were ignorant. Time for summer safety training with regards to sunburns. This way no other children in their care will get such a serious sunburn.

Be sure to point out that he was blistered when you talk to the camp managers Wallet. Good luck.

Does this stuff set him off? Be sure to ask his doctors first before you use it of course. I hope it helps. What I did when I took baking soda soaks was put some into a fairly deep almost lukewarm (bit warmer than lukewarm, enough to cool and soothe but not keep me hot) bath and soak for a bit, letting the water take some of the heat away, with the baking soda soothing the skin a bit. It’s good for lots of bug bites too, and you can apply a paste of it to places as you would calamine lotion.

Choosy Derm MD checking in:

If it’s that bad, see a doc. There are prescription medications that can help both with the intensity and duration of the pain. Ibuprofen is a good OTC analgesic in this situation. I caution use of many of the suggested remedies as they may have untoward effects especially if the burn is as bad as you describe (e.g. contact allergy from benzocaine in solarcaine). Cool baths are helpful

On preview I see that you’ve spoken to the pediatrician. That’s good. I think a dermatologist might have something useful to add if you can get in to see one in short time.

BTW, the counselors are total dicks. I’m sure your kid wasn’t the only one harmed. I’d complain, loudly.

Er, the water should be somewhat cloudy, to very cloudy from the baking soda, not just a teaspoon, a goodly amount in the bath. He might have to rinse it off before drying with clean water.

My sympathies. This happened to one of my sons, not at daycamp but after a day at Water World with a friend. The friend’s mother . . . was a NURSE!!! . . . and yet somehow the sunscreen didn’t get applied and I was furious.

For about a week he had these two huge blisters, bigger than silver dollars and about two inches thick, on his shoulders. Ugh! For several days he couldn’t even wear a shirt. To make things worse, aloe vera was recommended, but I personally have had bad reactions to it so I tested him, and he had the same bad reaction I have.

My only consolation was that the friend and mom (the NURSE!), who were both significantly more darkskinned than my kid, got burned too, although not as bad. I know I am a nasty person for taking comfort in that fact.

Now, many years later, I have forgiven her, because this kid (who is no longer a kid) is a redhead who will burn no matter what he applies or how often he applies it, and his skin will get red. But he still has never had a sunburn like that one.

BTW, let me recommend clothing from solumbra to prevent recurrence.

Sympathies for your little guy, Wallet. When I was a kid even the part in my hair would burn (THAT’S attractive when it starts peeling!) My mom used to call it “sun poisoning” (I guess that’s another term for “second degree burn”). If he’s in the sun at all again this summer, maybe dip him in some zinc oxide.

Aw, childhood sunburns! Remember them well, I does.

When I was about 13, I went on a church-sponsered bike ride along with a lot of other kids. This was the early 1970s, and horror-words such as “melanoma” were not known (or else my mother was either uninformed or psychotically sadistic). I wore a tanktop, no sunscreen, and we rode about fifteen miles in the blazing summer sun.

I came home with the worst sunburn of my life. Blisters the size of American quarters, and a quarter-inch tall by the next day (sunburns do take some time to develop…it may not have been obvious to the counsellors how burned your son was at the time: but, still–they should have been aware).

Of course, Noxema was the standard treatment, but my skin was so hot that the Noxema baked onto my skin, forming a crust that made me even more uncomfortable (because moving caused it to pull on my skin).

The only thing that made me feel better was some Avon product that my mother found (alas, I don’t remember the name) which was a foam that was ice-cold when applied. It was a life-saver.

Noxema might be good for mild sunburns, but when they’re intense, it’s just more pain.

I share your son’s suffering, because I’ve been there. It sucks like hell, and there’s no escape from it. He’ll cry. I did. Do your best. I’m not in touch with Avon these days, but you might see if they still make that stuff, whatever it was. It was a godsend.

Back in the 60s when Sunlight Was King, I would burn really bad early on in the season. My mom always made me wear a t-shirt over my bathing suit. I looked like a dork, but I was usually spared the pain of a really bad burn. Poor little guy.

First of all, after the blisters break, do NOT use Solarcaine on them. I’ve had second degree sunburn twice in my life, both times as a adult. The first time, after the blisters broke and I started peeling, I sprayed Solarcaine on my back thinking it would ease the pain. Instead, it hurt far worse than the original pain did. In fact, it was sheer, blinding agony for a few seconds. I swear by green aloe vera gel, myself.

Look, Wallet, I’m also fair-skinned, I burn easily, and I worked in tourism for many years. I used to warn people about the need to applying sunscreen, and it didn’t always worked, even when I was beet red while I was telling them this and serving as an example of what would happen if you didn’t do this. When my brothers were teenagers, they spent a week at the beach, staying up all night and sleeping on the beach all day. One of them, who’s naturally even fairer than I am, wound up with sunburn so bad he had purple polka dots! He wasn’t traumatized (it takes a lot to traumatize him); in fact, he now owns a house on a beach and has fair-skinned kids of his own.

You’re not a rotten parent. This could happen whether you’re there or not, and whether you warn your son or not. Yes, he was in pain when you posted. Yes, it could have been prevented, but that assumes your son’s willing to take a break from having fun and subject himself to slathering himself with sun block. When I was a kid, that was a chore. It’s worse, of course, because cuddling him to make the pain go away will only make things hurt worse, but I doubt this will ruin his life or put him in therapy for years. He may have learned a lesson; then again he may not – that sun burn I mentioned wasn’t my brother’s first one. He’ll be all right soon enough, and now, when he moans about sunscreen, you can remind him of what happens when he doesn’t.

As for the counselors, I see nothing wrong with saying a word, but please consider their position. In this day and age, putting sun screen on the kids themselves is inadvisable, when you consider that people who work with kids are warned against touching them in any way. They can tell kids to put sun screen on, but that leaves them with the question of what to do if a kid refuses to. We’ve all read tales of parents who think no one has the right to make their kid do something he or she doesn’t want to do. I suggest you ask your son to tell you what happened and if the counselors told him to put sunscreen on. If they did, ask him why he didn’t. They may have done the best they can.

He’ll be all right, you know, and so will you. Please don’t kick yourself over this. On a grand scale, this is fairly minor and in a year, he may not even remember (not a good thing if you’re trying to get him to wear sun screen again! :eek: ).

A careful hug to both of you.

I know what you’re trying to say here, but the image of trying to dry off with water is giving me the early-morning giggles.