Location Taken: Upstate New York
Time Taken: December 2010
It took me a long time to realize I was allergic to sunlight.
Well, there’s a pretty good chance that said allergy wasn’t strong enough for me to notice for most of my life, but still, the exhaustion and headaches and lethargy I get from even minor exposure should have clued me in pretty quickly.
But it was only last summer where I finally got a large enough exposure (10 minutes in direct sunlight, I know, so much!) that I got a migraine from it, and I decided that my growing suspicions were true.
There was a lot in the way of me discovering it. Some of them, such as my tendency to stay inside and to hang thick blankets over all my windows, might have possibly been encouraged by a subconscious knowledge of the allergy. But there were other possible factors that might have been why I felt icky after being outside that were lovely red herrings.
For one thing, I had childhood exercise induced asthma. Any time I did any sort of exercise more strenuous than walking, I lost my breath and couldn’t catch it again easily, which is most thoroughly unpleasant. Since most of what I do outside involves some sort of exercise, that was an easy explanation.
But that faded away when I was 20 or so.
At the same time, though, my allergies increased in strength. Doses that used to be not a problem suddenly gave me nasty headaches. I used to be able to drink two or three cups of tea before my caffeine allergy kicked in, for instance. Now I can’t have it at all.
Which is really sad, since I rather liked green tea. At least there’s some delicious herbal teas out there.
And before you start extolling your favorite decaf tea, even decaffeinated teas have enough remnants of caffeine that I get a headache from them. It’s just a smaller one than regular tea.
But because of this strengthening, a whole slew of new allergens for me to watch out for popped up, such as shellfish and asparagus. I probably was allergic to them before, but I never had a large enough serving size for the allergy to kick in. Some I’m still not sure about my current limit on because I just don’t like the taste (I’m looking at you, asparagus).
This meant a few years of getting random headaches as I encountered new allergens, so the occasional headache from being outside too much could have easily slipped under the radar.
The other red herring was heatstroke. I have more trouble with my sun allergy during the summer than during the winter. It might be because the heat stresses out my body so it can’t metabolize the allergen fast enough, it might be because the sun is literally closer and stronger during the summer, it might be that there’s more sunny days in summer, or it might just be because I do more that calls for leaving the house during the summer. But that hid the allergy some, since, well, the sun’s around all year but I only really have problems with it during the hotter months. It could have just been the sunlight heating up my body too much and that causing a reaction.
It’s tough to get heatstroke in 10 minutes while fully hydrated, though. That’s what told me that I could rule out that possibility.
So last summer I picked up an SPF jacket, a thin coat that you can wear on the hottest days that gives you the equivalent of at least SPF 50. And that did the trick. When I’m wearing that, I can play outside nearly as easily as anyone else.
…You know, that might be another reason I don’t have trouble during the winter. I wear a winter coat then, which would provide a decent amount of SPF protection just from the material… Huh…
Whatever the case, today was the first day of the year where just driving to the grocery store was enough sunlight exposure to give me a headache. So I guess it’s time to pull out the jacket again. Well, in those rare occasions I deign to leave the house, anyway.
Location Taken: Illinois, Near St. Louis
