How to Treat, Cure and Avoid Welding Sunburn

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Welding sunburns can lead to skin cancer. Thus it is essential to treat and cure a welding sunburn properly.

How to treat a welding sunburn?

As a rule of thumb, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation you should do the following when you have a sunburn:

  1. Act fast to cool it down
  2. Moisturize while skin is damp
  3. Decrease the inflammation
  4. Replenish your fluids
  5. See a doctor if there is severe skin damage

Please note, serious welding sunburns should always be treated by a doctor.

sun burn

But, if you only have a light welding burn you could try moisturizing cream to heal the damaged skin. Additional moisture helps to hydrate the skin and to decrease the inflammation.

Also, many people recommend aftersun lotion.

Some say they prefer Aloe Vera, Calimine lotion or Sudocrem to treat their welding sunburn. Immediate cooling with cold compress should also help.

Additionally, hydrate and drink a lot of water to replenish your fluids.

Alocane® Severe Sunburn Gel 2.5 oz.

Last update was on: March 16, 2024 5:56 am PST
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Why did I get a sunburn from welding?

welder

Sometimes people report they got a sunburn from welding. How can this happen?

During the welding process, high energetic UV light is emitted from the welding arc. This intense UV radiation is similar the light that the sun sends to us. This UV radiation can directly hit the welder.

Moreover, it also is reflected from shiny Aluminum or Stainless Steel plates.

Many people get burned when they wear insufficient protective clothing – like a T-Shirt – during welding. UV rays can get through T-Shirts.

It is essential that the skin can not directly be exposed to the UV rays.

Moreover, if you don’t have proper eye protection retinal flash burns can occur and damage your eyes, too.

On the other side, sunburn can also occur on your neck from the sun. In order to avoid sun exposition, you should consider a welding umbrella.

In addition, you can check out this article about top umbrellas for welding.

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Why should I care about welding sunburn prevention?

According to this scientific article, Jeffrey M. Sobell, an assistant professor of dermatology states that “energy from ultraviolet radiation can damage molecules in the skin, most importantly DNA”.

UV exposure can cause cancer or so-called malignant melanoma. It might not be a problem if it was your first sunburn. It may not be a problem after your second sunburn.

But if you get exposed to UV rays repeatedly, your skin gets permanently damaged and this can lead to skin cancer.

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How to avoid a welding sunburn?

For the future, I will give you some additional tips on how to avoid a welding sunburn.

To avoid welding sunburns you should wear proper protective clothing. You need to wear it, no matter how hot it is. Nothing is more important than your health.

Proper UV protective clothing includes the following items:

If you need a real sun protection consider welding blankets, curtains and welding umbrellas.

Image Credits: https://pixabay.com/photo-2117351/, https://pixabay.com/photo-1838986/

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