Hells Itch. Avoid It.

You’re enjoying your day at the beach, throwing around a ball, laying on your back in the ocean and then racing back when something touches your foot. It’s a great day. You return back home to realize later, gosh darn you forgot to put on sunscreen. The burn hurts but it’s something you can deal with for sure. You lay your head on your comfy pillow…

you fall asleep…

and then at three a.m…

welcome to hell😈

You wake up with a burning, fiery sensation underneath of your skin. Your body wants to itch it but as you itch, you only scratch your existing sunburn and cannot reach the itch under the skin. It’s unbearable pain that no matter what you do, itch, curl up, cry, it won‘t stop. And when it finally does stop… it comes again even worse in 15 minutes. This horrible feeling just keeps coming in waves, absolutely ruining whatever beauty sleep you were expecting.

I’m here to tell you, that despite what your mom might say when she hears you crying about a ‘sunburn’ that this is real, and oh my gosh is it painful.

There are stories of Navy Seals getting hells itch and falling to their knees crying in pain. Others say “you would rather rip your skin off.” It’s real, it’s painful, and unfortunately (fortunately) not a lot of people have gone through this so your reaction to a ‘sunburn’ will you weird looks any annoyed rolled back eyes. Oh is it frustrating.

So. You have it? Sorry for making you read this far to figure out what to do. I’ll make this section really obvious so you can skip over everything else

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Well, next time, put on sunscreen.

But for now, you’re going to have a LOOONG couple hours.

1. ibuprofen. Hopefully will eventually numb the pain

2. GET IN A HOT SHOWER. This step saved me from actually ripping my skin off. It’s a really, really nice band aid, not a fix.

3. Bite a rag to avoid screaming

The last step isn’t necessary but it sure did save me from waking up the house.

If you have hells itch, first of all, sorry. But as a man who has gone through this, it puts other pains to shame. We better start putting on sunscreen guys!