Lidocaine patch against sun burns

maribel · Silver Member Joined: 21 Jul 2002 Posts: 261

Hi, during my last visit to the local beach I got some nasty sun burns that hurt very much now. I tried putting sun tan cream on it and also I tried putting olive oil to relieve the pain. The protection cream didn’t help a bit, olive oil did reduce the pain for just a little bit so I'm still basically at the beginning. One of my friends say that I should try using lidocaine skin patches and that they are effective in reducing pain. I'm not sure what to do, I know that lidocaine can be dangerous should still listen to her?

vancise · Silver Member Joined: 14 Oct 2001 Posts: 264

Yes you are totally right, lidocaine is a really potent, dangerous analgesic and anesthetic and one should be extremely careful when using lidocaine in any form. Lidocaine skin patch is used to treat localized pain on the skin, like rashes and sunburns. When lidocaine skin patch is used it is very important that the skin on which it is being applied to isn’t damaged, that there is no open bleeding wound or some blisters because skin patches usually have a higher concentration of active substance that can be dangerous if it gets into the bloodstream, it can lead to intoxication. Lidocaine works by blocking or limiting the ability of the nerve endings to conduct electricity thus preventing the information about pain to get to the brain. It does not heal the damage to the skin it only prevents the pain. I think you should talk to your doctor about this because if the pain didn’t go away by itself in these few days it may be more serious than you think. I wouldn’t recommend using lidocaine patch simply because you can't get them without the prescription of your doctor. Good luck.

Lidocaine patch against sun burns

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