poison I was a total idiot in Nica one year. Stayed in the water & the Central American blazing sun for 7 straight hours catching waves. Never replenished my sunblock. What an ass I was. That night I was shivering & felt like complete crap. Couldn't stop shivering despite air temps in the 90's F. Skin felt crinkly, hurt to the touch, even my bones felt sore...awful. Nauseous. Weird dreams. A woman at a local gringo restaurant took one look at me & took pity on me....she gave me a box of baking soda & told me to put it on my skin as a paste. I would have put snake piss on my skin if someone told me it would reduce my agony. Well, I did what she said. And it def eased my pain. Apparently, baking soda on the skin helps the damaged skin retain moisture & provides a cooling effect without further dehydration of the skin, all at the same time. That was the end of my surfing for a few days. My own dumb ass fault.
been there.... these are two different issues. sun poisoning, or sunstroke, is an acute (immediate, short lasting) condition caused by excessive heat, sun exposure and dehydration. yankee's description is pretty accurate. sunstroke can kill you but is treatable short term with few lasting effects. sunscreen, hydration and shade are helpful in reducing its incidence. skin cancer is a chronic (evolving, long lasting) condition caused by long term exposure to the sun and is usually presented as a mole that is changing and/or has irregular borders, changes colors, or bleeds, especially after an exposure to the sun. mine started bleeding after a day snorkeling off twostep south of kona. it didn't hurt...it just started gushing like a bitc# when i was drying off my face after a shower. i had been exposing myself to the sun since i was a kid in the 70's (remember tanning with baby oil? spf what?) and it finally caught up to me. they took a dime sized chunk out of my cheek and a pencil eraser chunk out of my nose ( that was the bleeder). the cheek was acting like an ingrown hair or zit for a year or two prior (it only bled when i nicked it with a razor) and the nose deal looked like a whitehead under a blister (no other way to describe it) for the past three. i didn't know what they were until i checked the nose because of the bleeder. the dermatologist saw the other right away. skin cancer is treatable if caught early, usually with a removal, but if left unchecked can get into other systems and then you are screwed. figure what you see on the surface is like seeing an ice cube floating....what's underneath is far greater than what you see on top. use sunscreen (neutrogena makes an awesome 70spf that is not greasy and does not come off even in a multi-hour session...very nice) and hydrate your skin between to keep it healthy. the skin is the largest organ of the human body and is the first defense against infection. keep it safe and good luck , man.
and I was surfing in Nica when I pulled my stunt of sun poisoning. Spongedude gives experience to take seriously. (Yah, mon, spf what....? I remember those days, too. Coppertone oil for hours. What were we thinking.) Two years ago, after a lifetime in the sun I started going to a dermatologist every 6 mos. He does a full-body scan, and I do mean full body, for irregularities on my skin. Takes about 30 mins if done properly & with detail. No pain. I have moles that I want to keep an eye on. I wear long-sleeve rashies when surfing. I wear a lotta block that I refresh every 2 hours. Always under shade when chilling on the beach. I know a dude who got skin cancer. Huge tennis player, outdoorsman, cyclist. His cancer was on the ears. The docs cut away his ears, pieces at a time, to try to stop the spread of the skin cancer. It was frightening & it was disgusting. After a year of being cut to pieces, he had no ears left. A year after that, he didn't make it.
medical perspective Spongedude gives a nice description of heat stroke, as well as a good warning story of skin cancer. Sounds like he was lucky. There are actually 3 types of primary skin cancers: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Melanoma is the least common but by far the most deadly. Sun exposure increases the risk of all 3. Here's what to look out for: Basal cell carcinoma: Pearly raised or depressed skin lesion with rolled edges. Sometimes bleed. Starts out small and grows. Squamous cell carcinoma: Flaky raised lesion, looks like dead skin that keeps flaking and growing, itches sometimes. Melanoma: the ABCDEs Appearence: mottled dark lesion, like a mole but appearence is irregular as cancer develops Border: irregular and growing Color differences throughout lesions - blacks and browns Diameter: growing over time, >0.5cm is bad Elevation or depression as lesion grows Wear your suncreen!
Yea... "sun poisoning" is basically a second degree burn (blisters) from the sun. Looks just like a burn you'd get from touching something hot. The connection between sun poisoning and skin cancer is that a few of those instances of the former can lead to the latter. I've had over 50 pre-cancers (those white, flakey patches of skin that don't go away... and feel like there's fiberglass dust ground into your skin) removed by a dermatologist, mostly from my face, using liquid nitrogen. They essentially freeze/burn your skin in the affected area, and when that dies, scabs, and falls off, so does the cancer (hopefully). Sometimes they come back and have to be treated again. If they keep coming back, they have to cut them out, because the cancer is going deeper than the surface of the skin. At my age, most of my skin damage happened between 20 and 40 years ago, and that's where the cancers are appearing today. I try to protect my skin as best as I can today, but the damages is done. I just go every 6 months and get all the spots treated. And hope for the best.
