I burn easily. I've known this from childhood of course. Even my feet sunburn (and once memorably swelled up like I'd elephantiasis and I couldn't put on my shoes – my brother gave me a piggy back from the beach to the car park).
Sunburn tends to have a steep learning curve and I haven't really had much more than a glow of sunburn since adulthood. At Mt. Lavinia hotel on Saturday, I only absently did the job (the children providing ample distractions) before going into the pool with the kids (who were now suncream coated and chomping at the bit). After an hour or so I recognised that my back had burnt but wasn't red or overly worried. By evening I looked like an ill grilled sausage, with all the attention on one side. I was thankful that the water had only washed it off my body, not my face.
I've had a couple of restless nights trying to sleep on my front – as my back will not allow it and my shoulders won't allow me to be on my sides even. I thought that was that; lesson (re)learned. It seems my training was incomplete.
A slight discomfort began during the morning today, two days after getting burned. Within a couple of hours this escalated into a sensation rather like around two hundred tiny ants crawling and biting around just under your skin. I now know this is called 'Hell's Itch'.
The sun balm I had been applying for the last couple of days only increased the cracking, prickling sensation. I could feel my patience and sanity evaporating like alcohol on a plate. I could no longer stand still and soon found I had to call Anu to come home as I no longer felt able to properly look after the two kids until the itching had gone. I was quite short with my darling children when they got underfoot and disrupted my pacing (at this point, it seemed somewhat akin to breathing).
I tried to sit the kids in front of a DVD whilst I paced up and down under the ceiling fans, phone in hand, desperately trying to search online for advice with my agonizingly slow internet connection. The symptoms are obviously consistent enough and if the nickname 'Hell's Itch' hasn't given you enough of an idea they include – ants, insanity, wanting to rip their skin off, crying, screaming, etc. (though Anu is still skeptical about the woman who said it was worse than childbirth). But everyone subscribed to a different remedy: sun balm, witch doctor, vinegar, peppermint oil (neat or with coconut oil), cold baths, hot showers, A&D oil, aloe vera, burn treatment cream, pain killers, anti-histamine. By far from patient research I found many of these are aggravants that I hurried applied to as much of my back as I could reach before having to leap into a cold shower to wash them off. This even included (in my panic) applying something that read ALOE VERA but was actually a shampoo (yes, that stung).
I could see myself pacing the house, hopping, squirming and flinching through the night.
Anu was now home and could search the internet while I continued to pace the flat awaiting her arrival a the solution. 'Try a hot shower' she said. Hot water didn't sound like a good idea. However, at this stage, I was willing to try anything. I had been in acute discomfort for about five hours at this point.
And so here I am, sat down, typing. Maybe it was a cocktail of things but the scalding hot shower that seemed to have provided the tipping point.
I think I'll probably be slathered in about an inch of suncream for some time to come.
