Healthy Tips Video: Dr. Tidwell Discusses the Importance of Sunscreen

Video Transcript

Hello. I'm Dr. Jim Tidwell, and I'm the Vice President of Population Health at Owensboro Health. But I'm also a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. And I wanted to talk about skin care, particularly during the summer months, when we're outdoors more often and out enjoying the sun.

In particular, I wanted to talk a bit about sun protection with sunscreen. Here I have a number of different sunscreens. And I just wanted to show you this display to make a couple points. You're familiar with the SPF value or the sun protective factor. And I wanted to explain what that means. If I'm a person who typically burns after 10 minutes of being in the sun, if I apply an SPF of 30, that should mean that it will take me 30 times that 10 minutes for me to burn. Same thing with an SPF of 50.

I also wanted to make the point, however, that that is based on the presence of the sunscreen on my skin. So in other words, if I'm going swimming in the ocean, or in a swimming pool, or if I'm sweating, and that sunscreen is coming off, then of course, I'm not getting the benefit of that full 30 times 10 minutes, 300 minutes of protection.

So my recommendation with sunscreen is first, to find one that doesn't irritate you. People are more sensitive to the mineral-based sunscreens that have things like zinc oxide as the sun blocking factor. And far more often, people are allergic to or have some reaction to the chemical-based, PABA-based sunscreen.

So find something that you are comfortable using and that you can apply often. It's often the case that a 50 SPF is much more expensive than a 30 SPF. And it's probably a whole lot more effective to use a 30 SPF that you will apply multiple times during a day as opposed to just applying a 50 SPF in the morning and then spending all day in the sun.

Of course, they come in sprays, lotions, and sticks, and you'll just need to find what you're most comfortable with, so that you can, one, use it, and then focus on reapplying it. There is also a sunscreen that's often overlooked, and that's just your protective clothing. A lot of swimwear will also include on its tags an SPF factor. And that swimwear, unlike the sunscreens, typically doesn't wash off or sweat off. So you get the benefit of that clothing all day long.