Complications and risks of sunburn

Most sunburns heal completely in days. But a burn is real skin injury, and it pays to know the few complications that matter - immediate ones and the slow ones that arrive years later.

Short-term complications

• Infection of broken blisters: increasing pain, pus, spreading redness, or fever after blisters open - needs a doctor and sometimes antibiotics
• Dehydration and heat exhaustion: large burns pull fluid to the skin; combined with sweating, this causes weakness, dizziness, and in severe cases heat illness
• Heatstroke: the dangerous partner of long sun exposure - confusion, fainting, very hot skin. Call 112 immediately.
• Sun poisoning (severe reaction): intense burn with swelling, headache, nausea, and chills - needs medical care
• Sunburned eyes (photokeratitis): UV burns the eye surface too - painful, gritty, light-sensitive eyes after intense exposure; usually heals in 1 to 2 days but needs rest and sometimes a doctor

Long-term complications - the serious ledger

• Skin cancer risk: UV damage is cumulative. Repeated sunburns, especially blistering burns in childhood, raise the lifetime risk of melanoma and other skin cancers - including in Indian skin, where skin cancer is less common but absolutely occurs
• Early skin aging: wrinkles, loss of firmness, and rough texture on repeatedly exposed areas
• Pigmentation problems: dark patches (melasma worsens with sun), uneven tone, and white spots after burns heal
• Precancerous patches (actinic keratoses): rough scaly spots on sun-exposed skin in later life that need a dermatologist

Watch your skin after burns

• Any mole or spot that changes in size, color, or border, bleeds, or does not heal - get it checked
• A patch that stays rough or scaly for months on sun-exposed skin - get it checked

Who faces higher risk

Fair skin, outdoor workers, children with repeated burns, people on sun-sensitizing medicines, and anyone with a family history of skin cancer.

Ayurvedic view (interpretive): Classical texts link chronic sun overexposure with deep pitta imbalance and skin disorders - a directionally fitting caution, though cancer risk is modern medicine's established finding.

Remember: Watch the burn for infection and the body for heat illness in the short term, and respect the long term: every burn is banked UV damage, so prevention and checking changing moles are the real protection.