So what is my rough start? Well, it seems that during the winter months when it is just one big rain storm here in the Pacific Northwest, I have developed a bizarre new allergy...to the sun.
That's right. This desert born-Coloradan girl is allergic to sunlight. It isn't polymorphic and it's nothing like a sunburn. Exposure to sunlight, within ten to fifteen minutes directly, causes a very uncomfortable blistering rash to spread on my forearms and the backs of my hands (anywhere exposed to light really). They itch like CRAZY! And scratching makes it worse! My patio and my little sky garden faces West. It tends to get a high amount of light during the day and I have to be quick to dodge in and out of the shadow when watering.
I have talked to an individual who is my primary medical adviser, she has done work with me before on other allergies and diet issues I had in the past. Some are as mild as cat and dog dander allergies, and a few that are stress triggered allergies instead of environmental. When these skin symptoms started up, I called her and she did some tests on me and discovered that it was a sun rash. Basically, as she explained, the body can develop this allergy when someone spends a prolonged amount of time indoors, like during winter, for example. The pores forget how to expand wide enough to let in the right amount of UV to produce melamine that causes pigmentation to change, and sometimes when the body does produce melamine, the immune system attacks those cells, believing they are foreign. I know through my boyfriend, who works for a solar company, that UV can penetrate through cloud cover which is why the English Ivy and blackberries tend to stay pleasantly green all year long. The body is much like a plant, we still rely on having sunlight and that UV as a nutrient. I admit, I did not leave the house often during this last winter, and when I did, it was not during the day hours or for very long. Who wants to be out in the freezing rain and hail to get a pre-spring tan?
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| I am the night! |
When I first heard of the allergy, I thought it was pretty neat. I'm like a vampire! Hissssss! No sun! It burnnnnssss usssss! lol. Yes, I got silly in my head about it. How bad could it really be? I'm a night owl by nature, most of my hobbies are indoor anyways (ever try knitting while jogging through a park?) and vampires are kinda neat. I'm a writer, and vampires are something I choose to host in my stories a lot. Sort of taking my character personas to a whole new level, I guess. So I started to follow the advice on easing my allergy symptoms (they don't really just go away on their own). I found myself some knitting patterns to make little wrist-warmer type sleeves for my arms when I'm out. Something light, but not lacy.
I was also advised to get some of that sunless tanning lotion, the one that has the pigment in it that stains the skin. This actually upset me a little bit. I'm a very white person, fair sensitive skin, but the one thing that I was always proud of was how well I tanned during summer back in Colorado as a kid. My hair would lighten with natural pale-blonde highlights from the sun, and I would tan beautifully. Part of the news was that I wouldn't be able to do that now, and I actually cried thinking of that. Cheater tans! That's what I would need just to go outside and not have my immune system attack my own melamine-changed cells! How horrible! No pool, no beach, no biking outside without a silly get-up!
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| Sun protection, it's kinda important. |
