I grew up in Florida, and every year my cousins from Michigan would come down during their spring break to visit us and work on their tans. One year, a cousin and her friend came down and sat by our pool for an entire afternoon, lathered in baby oil and drinking wine.  My parents warned them of their foolishness, but they were bound and determined to get the best suntan possible.  It was a lovely idea, until they came in for the day and one of them promptly fainted and then got physically ill.  They both ended up in the emergency room that night. The diagnosis?  Sun poisoning. 

Sun poisoning occurs when someone has a reaction to the UV rays that are in sun.  It can be caused by too much exposure to the sun and it is not fun! The worst part is that long after the physical symptopms of sun poisoning have dissapeared, there is still a heightened risk of eventually developing skin cancer later in life.

Even if you are very careful in the sun, it's still possible to get sun poisoning. Maybe you fell asleep at the beach and forgot to put on additional sunscreen.  Or maybe you spent all day with your kids playing outdoors and just didn't realize how much sun you were getting.  It happens to the best of us.  It's important to know the sun posioning syptoms so that you can start to treat them right away.  

Symptoms of sun poisoning can include:

- Red skin

- A Red Rash on the Skin

- Nausea

- Dizziness

- Fainting

- Blisters on the skin: These can be very small or quite large

- Chills

- Dehydration

- Fever

If you or your child has a sunburn accompanied with some of these other symptoms, chances are that you have sun poisoning.