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May 24, 2008, 9:49 pm
Flag as Inappropriate Ozzie  

When I was younger I used to get the occasional sunburn. Now when I'm in the sun I get what my doctor refers to as a sun allergy. I had never heard of this before and am wondering if any of you have. My skin gets very blotchy, itchy and burns really bad. After that goes away, I may have brownish skin discoloration. I have to wear heavy long sleeves to work in the garden. ugh!

I have some sort of reaction after being out in the sun that sounds about the same, but I have never asked about it. Typically happens to my chest and arms more predominantly than anywhere else.

My father would always get, what he called sun poisoning, when he would go into the sun without his very dark sunglasses on. His eyes would blow up and he'd feel sick for days if he got too much sun that way. So I can see that people can get a bad reaction by being exposed to sun and that they could have an allergy to it.

After all the sun does give us many nutrients and so it can have something in the rays that can adversely effect us.

I just looked it up and it's a reaction to the Ultraviolet light, a hypersensitivity to the sun, called Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE).

The problem typically begins between the ages of 20 and 35. Native Americans have a high rate of PMLE and there is some evidence of a genetic predisposition!

Isn't that interesting? For more info:

http://www.dermadoctor.com/pages/newsletter101.asp

Interesting. My daughter's mother-in-law has a sun allergy, she has to wear long sleeves and gloves in the sun to protect her from developing a hives-like reaction. Sounds similar to your problem.

My niece just experienced the hives reaction after spending a few hours at the beach about a month ago. She was visiting us on spring break and that's what ended up happening. She's only 13, though, and this is the first time it's ever happened to her. We used Benadryl cream and it went away by the next day.

I got sun poisoning when I was younger. I still do if I forget sunscreen, t shirt or baseball cap.

I throwup, run fever, blister in my throat.. its awful.

Now I dont get it as bad. I wear a dive skin or wet suit, comb sunscreen through my hair and wear block where ever I can.

I found that since I took up skin diving( not scuba) but i wear teh same layers as scuba divers it allows me to love teh water. My most current sever case was from five years ago, begore I went on insulin,. we went out hiking and i got so siuck on teh trail......

came home and slept for three days, swelled up buta bendryl helped so much....

I didn't know that. I'm American Indian so i take well to the sun.