Photosensitivity - Causes, Symptoms and Therapy

Photosensitivity - When light causes pain in the eyes
Photosensitivity involves various problems the eye has to respond to light. Depending on the severity, it causes the sufferer pain to expose their eyes to light. It is not about intense "looking in the sun". Nobody can stand that.

On the other hand, those who suffer from photosensitivity can not tolerate normal daylight. His eyes reddened, tears and itch. Depending on the condition, the more the light irradiation increases, the greater the visibility.

People who are particularly sensitive to light often close the curtains during the day or put on strong sunglasses. Depending on the disease, they react either to artificial light or to the natural UV radiation of the sun - or to both.

contents

• skin lesions
• Allergies by artificial means
• tattoos
• Keratitis
• Porphyria - The vampire disease
• Dark skin and brown urine
• Porphyria and the belief in living dead
• What symptoms do vampires and werewolves have in common??
• A sound explanation?
• Is porphyria curable?
• What to do against photosensitivity?
• Is it enough to avoid sunlight??
• The Mallorca acne
• The cataract
• literature

skin lesions

Increased photosensitivity not only leads to discomfort of the skin, but also to allergic reactions of the skin. If these reactions are specifically triggered by the UV rays, we speak of a sun allergy.

Eye pain in photosensitivity. Image: Adam Gregor - fotolia

It does not have to be a natural reaction. Also, artificial substances such as creams, gels or sprays can be photochemically changed the skin so that they trigger an allergic reaction to UV light. This also applies to medications such as doxycycline and St. John's wort.

The allergic reaction initially acts like a sunburn: the skin reddens, swells and itches. In a so-called phototoxic reaction, these processes are faster and more intense. A short contact with sunlight now ensures that the skin burns.

By nature, photosensors are albinos, which are people who lack all the dark pigments. Albinos in tropical countries such as Tanzania, which usually have a very dark hair color genetically, suffer particularly badly.

Without any protection, UV-A, B and C rays can now penetrate the skin in excess. This not only leads to extreme sunburn, first and second degree skin burns, if exposed to sunlight for even a few minutes, but also the risk of developing skin cancer is extremely high for these people, as well as the danger they face Immune system fails and heart functions are disturbed.

Allergies by artificial means

When certain creams, gels or medications release the sun allergy, the symptoms diminish when the skin is no longer exposed to the sun. Discolouration on the affected skin areas may remain.

The treatment is simple: Patients should not use the active substance that triggers the allergy. If they do it anyway, the reaction is repeated.

However, the itching in the exposed areas can become chronic if the sufferers apply the remedy for a long time. Then the skin structure is so damaged that it reacts extremely sensitively to sunlight, even if the patients stop the triggering agent.

tattoos

Freshly tattooed skin should not be exposed to the sun for at least a few weeks. The reason is as simple as many people forget the caution: a tattoo consists of hundreds of tiny skin lesions.

The human skin is not only our largest organ, but also an excellent self-protection of the body for the vital organs inside. As a buffer to the outside world, the skin performs a permanent defense against fungi, bacteria, viruses and all sorts of foreign bodies and chemicals - usually extremely successful.

The self-healing powers of the skin are so effective that small injuries such as trespasses or cuts, burns and stings heal without outside help. Healing means that a new skin forms on the wound surface.

In this healing process, the skin is particularly sensitive - especially sensitive to sunlight. So they should also a scar tissue that forms after a cut injury or a freshly healed burn not exposed to sunlight unprotected. The same applies to tattoos.

Keratitis

People whose corneas in the eye are inflamed do not suffer from hypersensitive skin. The nerves in the cornea are extremely sensitive. If a foreign body penetrates, they also react sensitively.

The eyelids now close reflexively even at low incidence of light. The situation is similar in the case of sunburn in the eye, in an inflamed iris, conjunctivitis or meningitis.

Porphyria - The vampire disease

Prophyrie refers to a spectrum of metabolic disorders. Products of the metabolism deposit themselves in the skin and trigger "light poisoning".

The skin changes with chronic prophyries to a "monstrous" appearance of those affected. Patients show a strong sensitivity to light, so they prefer to move outdoors in the dark. The rotting teeth fluoresce, the body hair grows even on the face. The teeth are larger in resolution of the gums than they really are. The bones become distorted during the course of the disease. A state of delirium and emotional outbursts also create a picture that suggests the transformation of a person into "something else".

Dark skin and brown urine

Acute forms are associated with complaints of the cardiovascular system and also with abdominal pain, mental disorders are common - these include psychosis and depression.

The Porphyria cutanea tarda is chronic and probably has a genetic attachment as a base. At the skin areas, which are exposed to light, bubbles form, especially on the back of the hand, on the neck and on the face. The pigments are increasingly and irregularly formed, so those affected have large areas of darker skin. The skin on the body grows strong. The urine of those affected darkens in the light to a pink-brown color.

Even more dangerous is the porphyria acuta intermittens, it is also hereditary and usually breaks up in young adults. Trigger for an outbreak may be infections, but also alcohol, stress or hunger. Colic, vomiting, severe fever, cardiac disorders, paralysis, convulsions, dissociation and extreme sensory changes without external cause are typical. Respiratory paralysis is common, and therefore patients must be immediately rushed to intensive care.

Porphyria and the belief in living dead

The typical symptoms of porphyria in its various forms, combined with the fact that it was a hereditary disease in some genders of the European nobility, led some physicians and historians to take them as an explanation for the belief in werewolves and vampires.

According to the historian H. Sidky, descriptions of alleged werewolves in the early modern period partly coincided with porphyria. Novelist Nina Blazon turned the porphyria into a vampire novel in which a superstitious villagers consider a suffering fellow man a vampire.

What symptoms do vampires and werewolves have in common??

Light causes great pain to the person concerned, which is why he avoids the sun. His eyes are red, his looks grotesquely changed.

Fantastic figures of the horror film and gothic novel, the werewolves and vampires, actually "resemble" those with porphyria. Often a genital curse triggers their transformation (genetic attachment), then they can not endure sunlight, the werewolves proliferate in human form the hair on the body, in werewolves, the transformation is accompanied by extreme emotional outbursts that they have not under control.

Researchers who represent the link between porphyria and werewolf / vampire also point out the "predatory" features: the skin deformed by the disease, and especially the teeth that emerge from the drying gums, would give the patient a "petite appearance".

A sound explanation?

The cramps and paralysis seen in acute porphyria are also reported by "werewolves," who transform from their human form to an animal form.

Such theories are interesting but historically untenable. In fact, the werewolf's metamorphosis was only important to nineteenth-century novelists until it became a major attraction for make-up artists in horror film.

In the Middle Ages and early modern times, when people believed in werewolves as real beings, the how was not at the center of belief. Quite seldom does the narrative reveal how the transformation actually took place.

In addition, it would be negligent to conclude from an extremely rare disease to ubiquitous beliefs in popular beliefs.

Is porphyria curable?

Porphyria can not be completely cured until today, but the symptoms can significantly relieve those affected if they avoid the triggers. Today, there are effective sunscreen creams, and chloroquine can release the porphyrins from the tissue. Even today, those affected need to shun light as much as possible.

What to do against photosensitivity?

If your eyes are very sensitive to light and you do not have a direct explanation, such as conjunctivitis, go to the ophthalmologist. He can fight the cause knowing the disease.

However, if you suffer temporarily from an overreaction to light stimuli, during a cold or during migraine, then you avoid flickering light and relieve the symptoms by dripping eye drops into your irritated eyes.

A migraine can be responsible for photosensitivity. Image: Antonioguillem - fotolia

Is it enough to avoid sunlight??

Be careful. If you are hypersensitive to sunlight, it is not enough to stay out in the sun. UV-A rays also penetrate glass panes.

Avoid sunbeds, wear dense and long clothes, and cream with a high sun protection factor and against UV-A like UV-B radiation. Apply transparencies to the windows that do not transmit UV light.

The Mallorca acne

This sun eczema first entered the medical definition in 1972. Here, the hair follicles get sick, and this leads to changes in the skin that resemble acne. The term Majorca acne stems from the fact that it is a typical "tourist disease". The main victims are holidaymakers from northern countries who plunge into the sunbelt with too little sun protection and too long in hot countries.

Patients do not just develop a normal sunburn, but small nodules on the hair follicles, which are usually slightly reddened. Typically, they spread in the neckline and shoulders. Unlike "pimpled" acne, no pus forms.

It is, strictly speaking, not a disease, but a self-protection of the skin. The skin reacts to an excess of UV rays and forms new connective tissue - these are the nodules.

When those affected stay away from sunlight, the symptoms slowly fade away.

The cataract

Cataracts cloud the lens, and vision diminishes until the sufferer becomes completely blind. Due to the clouded lens, the light also fades much more than usual, no matter whether it is the setting sun or a living room lamp.

Those who suffer from cataracts expose themselves and their fellow humans to increased danger when driving a car. Because he is permanently blinded as normal-looking in a tilted sun penetrating through the dirt film of the windshield.

A lens opacification is also caused by too much UV light for a long time. Unlike the skin that suffers from sunburn, the lens of the eye can not regenerate, and minor damage leads to loss of vision over the years.

A cataract can not be treated, but only canceled by the lens is surgically replaced by an artificial lens. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)

literature

• Leubuscher, Rudolph: On the Wehrwolves and Animal Transformations in the Middle Ages. A contribution to the history of psychology by Dr. med. Rud. Leubuscher. Private docents and practical doctors in Berlin. Printing and publishing by G. Reimer. Berlin 1850. Reprint of the original edition. Allmendingen 1981.
• Lorey, Elmar: Heinrich, the werewolf. A story from the time of the witch trials. Frankfurt am Main 1997. / Werewolf processes on his website: www.elmar-lorey.de
• Marx, K. F. H .: On the Occurrence and Judgment of Hundwuth in Ancient Times. From the seventeenth volume of the treatises of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Göttingen 1872.
• Otten, Charlotte (ed.): A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture. Syracuse, New York 1986.
• Oeser, Erhard: dog and man. The story of a relationship. Darmstadt 2004.
• Roberts, Keith: A werewolf formula. A little cultural history of the werewolf. In: Müller, Ulrich, Wunderlich, Werner (ed.): Medieval myths Vol. 2. St. Gallen, 1999, pp. 565-581.
• Rosenbohm, Alexandra: Marburg Studies on Ethnology. Hallucinogenic drugs in shamanism. Myth and ritual in cultural comparison. Berlin 1991.
• Rougemont, Joseph Claudius: Treatise on the Hundswuth. Translated from French by Professor Wegeler. By Philipp Heinrich Guilhauman. Frankfurt am Main 1798.
• Rowlands, Mark: The philosopher and the wolf. What a wild animal teaches us. Berlin 2009.
• Summers, Montague: werewolf. London 1933.
• Sidky, Hubert: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease. New York 1997.
• Stewart, Caroline T .: The Origin of Werewolf Beliefs. In: Bolte, Johannes (ed.): Journal of the Association for Folklore. Berlin 1909. p. 30-49.