Why am I cold when I have a sunburn?

Question

I was in the sun for 4.5 hours.

My legs, stomach and shoulder/chest area are dark red.

I think my stomach is blistered....

My question:

Why am I so cold? I have been shivering all night?

It's been 5 hours since I was in the sun, but I don't think I should have been shivering under the pillow I had on my lap.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Since your skin is hot, your skin cells are forced to move toards the sunburned skin to heal it up. Then you have a lack of cells closer to the inside of your body because they got closer to your skin. Are you sure you are cold? Because when this takes action, it just makes you shiver for no reason, not necessarily make you cold

Answer 2

sunburn is often associated with heat stroke!

keep your fluid levels up and if you get worse go to the docs immediately

Answer 3

same as a fever.

b/c ur skin is so hot everything else feels cooler

Answer 4

Because your skin has a fever.  Take a couple of tylenol to help bring the fever down, and drink a lot of water.

Answer 5

Dang Marie!

Get a beach umbrella, sun screen, and never do that again!

Hope you feel better soon..  In case you don't already know, there's sunburn lotions in big gel bottles that have lidocaine in them to reduce pain.  They sell them in Walmart, etc.

Answer 6

Hey guys, some of your answers are close, some are way off and yeah, some are flat out wrong.  

Skin regulates temp.  Without skin, or skin in a particular area, your body via the hypothalmus (also helps with regulation of temp) can't regulate it's temperature.

Skin is the largest organ of the body so you can imagine what happens if you lose 50% to burns.  This is why all patients who get admitted to burn centers are put in rooms 80-90F.