Allergic to the sun?

December 10, 2007 3:21 PM

When I was about 10 or 12, I think, there was one summer where I was, I was told, "allergic to the sun." I've googled the phenomenon and I don't seem to fit the profile. What was this?

I remember it occurring deep in the summer, not in the spring, and I had to wear long-sleeved tees and a hat while swimming. It presented as dramatic bruising, not as an itchy, hive-y rash and has never happened again. I am very fair and I was not abused. I had a severe case of chicken pox as well as bronchitis as a child but I'm not sure if either was around this time. Is it possible that this was some sort of reaction to medication?

posted by Morrigan to health & fitness (14 comments total)

Certain antibiotics are definitely sun-unfriendly, they can dramatically increase the chance of a burn or other reactions. I'd say some sort of drug reaction is a definite possibility. Chicken pox also greatly increases your burn chances for up to a year afterwards as well.
posted by pupdog at 3:36 PM on December 10, 2007

I went through that too and heard the same thing. Sun rash and sun poisoning were other terms used.
posted by loosemouth at 3:46 PM on December 10, 2007

you wouldn't have been allergic for just one summer. i think the people that have that issue battle it all their lives, in the winter as well as summer.
posted by thinkingwoman at 3:47 PM on December 10, 2007

I knew someone who was on major steroids who got what looked like major bruising where he was the most suntanned. I think it was just the skin thinning that steroids cause plus sun damage.
posted by small_ruminant at 3:56 PM on December 10, 2007

you wouldn't have been allergic for just one summer. i think the people that have that issue battle it all their lives, in the winter as well as summer.

There are a number of conditions which occur due to exposure to sunlight. They vary in severity and symptom(s): Actinic Prurigo, Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE), Photoallergic Eruption and Solar Urticaria.

Is it possible that this was some sort of reaction to medication?
Certain antibiotics are definitely sun-unfriendly, they can dramatically increase the chance of a burn or other reactions

When I was on Tetracycline, I was advised to avoid sunlight.
posted by ericb at 4:06 PM on December 10, 2007

For whatever reason, a lot of the men in my family (myself included, to an extent) have a tendency to sneeze when catching a glance at the sun directly. Not sure what this is.
posted by goHermGO at 4:11 PM on December 10, 2007

For whatever reason, a lot of the men in my family (myself included, to an extent) have a tendency to sneeze when catching a glance at the sun directly. Not sure what this is.

Photic sneeze reflex
posted by rancidchickn at 4:15 PM on December 10, 2007

I sneeze when looking at the sun when I forst get out of the house in the morning as well. I mentioned it casually to mu daughter once as I was allergic to the sun. She took my joke as as me being seious couple of months, apparently.

That being said, yes some medicines will make you sensitive to the sun, but if you were actually allergic to it, it's pretty much a permanent and really debilitating condition. There was a story here in the newspaper not too long ago about a family from Europe moving to a northern British Columbia town because it has a record number of overcast days per year and their kids have the sun allergy.
posted by barc0001 at 4:40 PM on December 10, 2007

Perhaps Fifth Disease. Sunlight is a trigger, rash is a symptom, and some cases in older kids can present with swelling and redness that may have looked like bruising. Once infected, you get over it and it's in your system and you don't (usually) get the symptoms again.
posted by cocoagirl at 4:58 PM on December 10, 2007

I had Fifth Disease once as a kid, and I know the word "allergy" was bandied about as an analogy. The symptoms were similar, and it was caused by overexposure at Field Day. I bet's that what it was.
posted by gerryblog at 5:46 PM on December 10, 2007

People with Lupus are often described as being "allergic" to the sun, mainly because sunlight exacerbates the condition. But obviously you wouldn't have had Lupus for only one Summer. A lot of the broader spectrum antibiotics prescribed for respiratory infections react adversely to sunlight, and you'd had bronchitis, so maybe it was something like that.
posted by Oriole Adams at 8:58 PM on December 10, 2007

Porphyria might be explained to a child as an "allergy to the sun," but that is also not a temporary condition. As mentioned above, any tetracycline antibiotic can cause photosensitivity, but they just increase your chance of getting a sunburn; I don't think they would cause bruising.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 9:54 PM on December 10, 2007

Obscure data point for you... When I was in high school, I had a friend who told me she was "allergic to the sun". That might have changed (her words or my memory, not sure which) to "allergic to heat". Basically, she did not react well (I think hives was one symptom) when out in the sun in summer (and she was a lifeguard!). And I have never heard of such a thing until reading this question. That's all I got.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:28 AM on December 11, 2007

One of my friends from high school is actually allergic to sunlight (and fluorescent bulbs and other such things the emit UV light). She will break out in hives wherever the sun touches her skin, and can go into anaphylaxis from sunlight. She said she was one of a very small handful of people in the world who are actually allergic to sunlight. My school had to put up UV blockers on all its windows, and she drove a car specially tinted to block UV light (complete with a handicap tag so she didn't have to walk too far outside). Just FYI.
posted by nursegracer at 9:51 AM on December 11, 2007