Last Thursday’s column.
Many Caucasians look forward to the summer as though it were Christmas. After cold and dreary winters, they get excited over the thought of sunny beaches and basking in the sun to acquire an enviable tan. I’m not Caucasian, I like the beach like most Filipinos, but sunbathing is not my idea of fun. Fifteen minutes under intense sunlight and my skin burns. Literally. Red spots that, days later, turn into blisters. When I was in my third year in the U.P. College of Law, I joined a march that began at the Sto. Domingo Church and ended at Liwasang Bonifacio. The following day, fellow students who did not join the march remarked at my red skin and asked to what beach I went to. Funny. There was a group of us that joined the march and only I was asked about the beach.
Perhaps, having sensitive skin is something genetic. My brother has a sun allergy and his skin breaks out in red itchy spots, often accompanied by headaches, when he stays under the sun. He couldn’t attend normal CMT classes in college but had problems getting exempted because doctors, who didn’t have a name for his condition, could not, or would not, issue a medical certificate. All they did was to write prescriptions for this and that ointment.
Today, we know sun allergy as solar urticaria. One of my daughters has it too. You’ll never see her wearing a swimsuit on the beach – she keeps as much of her skin covered by wearing sleeved shirts and long shorts. When she was in high school and P.E. classes required her to play football (sometimes, at eleven o’clock in the morning), I took it upon myself to explain her condition to the school and to appraise them too about how difficult it was to get a medical certificate given my brother’s experience who had gone to doctors who did not even have a name for his condition.
Sadly, the school took on the attitude that my daughter was just too lazy to attend her P.E. classes. Her refusal to play football under the noonday sun (what conscientious school, pray, would require students to play football under the noonday sun in the first place?), among other things, prompted the school to require mandatory counseling in a center recommended by the school’s guidance counselor — because, we were told, she might have some deep-rooted psychological or emotional problem.
We complied. But what did the counselor say after two sessions? She said, “But there’s nothing wrong with your daughter; she’s just a normal teenager.” And that’s a direct quote. And the counselor simply gave our daughter some writing assignments to email to her because, she said, she didn’t see the point in us spending all that time, driving back and forth between Antipolo and Quezon City, and money, when there’s really nothing wrong with our daughter. Ergo, just to comply with the required number of counseling sessions, the written “assignment.”
Ignorance can be such a dangerous thing. Your kid can have sun allergy and the school will tell you that she might be emotionally disturbed. In this day and age of talks about gaping holes in the ozone layer and the dangers of exposure to ultraviolet rays, it pays to know if the redness on your skin is common sunburn or if it is something more problematic. Sun allergy is not the figment of the imagination. It isn’t a common condition but it is very real. In the Mayo Clinic website, James T. Li, MD, explains:
In sensitive people, direct sun exposure can trigger an immune system response that activates inflammatory cells or proteins in the skin. The result may be an itchy, red rash or hives (solar urticaria). This reaction usually fades within 24 hours after sun exposure.
Solar urticaria is very difficult to diagnose. Daniel More, MD, a board-certified allergist and clinical immunologist who writes for the New York Times sister company About.com says:
A solar urticaria diagnosis cannot be made by a person’s history of symptoms alone, since other conditions, such as polymorphous light eruption and certain forms of porphyria, can also cause skin rashes with sun exposure. A diagnosis is made when the skin is exposed to various forms of light that can produce different spectrums, or wavelengths. This is a specialized test that is most often performed by dermatologists, who have the specialized equipment available for such testing. Sometimes a diagnosis can only be made with exposure to natural sunlight.
Worse, like most other allergies, there is no real cure. Antihistamines can prevent or reduce a reaction but the condition remains. Dr. More, however, also says, “It is possible to desensitize the skin with repeated exposures to sunlight so that hives will not occur with future exposures. This specialized form of therapy, which should only be performed by an allergist or dermatologist, typically only lasts for a few days, and therefore needs to be repeated frequently.” Possible but with no real guarantees. Still, if you know of any doctor who will be willing to sit under the sun with my daughter until the rashes break out, make a diagnosis, and repeat the procedure everyday, do let me know. My brother might be glad to hear about such doctor too.
P. S. My daughter is now in college, gets outstanding grades in P. E. (basketball, table tennis) in a school where P. E. classes are held in a covered gym.
I think I also had a classmate of mine back in high school with the same condition, because she always wore long arm bands during PE class. And when we got to the beach, she wore the exact same pair.
Allergies could really ruin a lot of things like everyday activities and great tasting food. What’s worse is that there’s really no cure, it’s stuck with you for the rest of your life.
I’m allergic to crustaceans (shrimp, prawns, crabs etc) and squids (they’re not crustaceans, are they?), the condition lessened somewhat after my gall bladder surgery (what the connection is, I still don’t know) but it is not totally gone. I can eat a few pieces here and there but I can never eat them with total abandon like “normal” people can.
having kids play under the noontime sun is INSANE. if the school did that to my kids i would raise hell. they both have atopic dermatitis / skin asthma and are highly sensitive to heat and sweat. awang-awa ako sa kanila whenever their rashes come out. schools should at least be considerate and sympathetic enough to understand the physical conditions and needs of their students. if i was told my kids had psychological problems i’d go berserk. having to see them suffer from their condition is already hard enough as it is.
and yes, you’re right, there really is no cure for allergies, just long-term maintenance and control. iterax and zyrtec are already permanent fixtures in our medicine cabinets, along with (very expensive) creams and corticosteroids.
Sam had skin asthma when she was a year old. She could only wear 100% cotton clothing. There were jars and jars of expensive creams (some German brand). But here’s the thing. Sam was born in 1992, the year of the infamous 12-hour brownouts. When the brownouts were over by late 1993, the skin asthma disappeared. Or maybe hibernated. She didn’t have problems until high school and those noonday P.E. classes.
asthma runs in our family on both sides. my mom and me are asthmatic. i was diagnosed when i was in high school. my younger sister had it when she was just a child but now wala nah. our youngest sister has skin asthma. she’s a year younger than sam. she developed it when she was just a few months old and it took a while to diagnose her case.
since kakambal ng isang asthmatic ang allergy, just recently i had an allergy attack (allergic rhinitis) which led to an asthma attack. summer na kasi so its dry and dusty na talaga sa paligid ko. i don’t know what causes it. that’s the worst part of having an allergy cause there are so many factors that could cause attacks. my doctor told me to keep a journal and list all the activities i took prior to each attack that i will have in the future in order for me to determine kung ano ang dapat kung iwasan. tsk!
Just last night I e-mailed Joel Stein(American journalist-LA Times and TIME mag)who wrote an article last year and I just found it recently,saying that
nut allergies are Yuppie invention.It’s truly insulting to all parents
and family of children with allergies.It’s like the school administrators
who don’t have any clue what they’re talking about and not aware of what
the affected person or their families are going through.
Browneyed girl….our 20 month old grandson suffer from a.dermatitis
but he was tested and found out that the culprit was several food products
that he is allergic to like wheat,eggs,tomato,oatmeal,cow’s milk,etc.
We are very careful in preparing his meals otherwise he’ll have flare-ups.
Google Joel Stein and read what this idiot has to say re.children
with allergies(LA Times article dated 1/09)
Thanks Connie for this post. I can’t stay in the sun either.
Read Stein’s short bio on LA Times. He admits that he craves attention. Ooh la la.
hi…i have a rare allergy..i need sun exposure so it will be treated. I have this allergy for almost 6 months now and when i went to another dermatologist, he advised me to be sun exposed. i hope my allergies will be gone soon…=(
emyM… thanks so much for the info
we’ve contemplated having them tested too but the cost is really frightening… around P20K+… anyway we have done ‘trial and error’ ourselves and tried to remove certain foods one at a time like eggs, cow’s milk, oranges, etc. pero at the end, it was really heat, sweat, pawis which causes their itching. not so much the food. they have to be in an airconditioned room as much as possible because of this 
and oh yes, not to mention dust mites causes their allergy too.
Hi Ms. Connie!Just wondering if Sam went to the same high school as Alex?If yes, then something is really wrong with that school’s policy especially on students’ medical conditions!
Yes, she did.
PE at *noon*? When skin specialists say that exposure to the sun between the hours of 10am-3pm is a passport to skin cancers? When dehydration and heat exhaustion is a real possibility? Gah!
Above rant fueled by the fact that all outdoor activity in my elementary school stopped at 10am, and transferred to the covered courts. Not even our swimming subject was held under the noonday sun.
I have no words for a school that can correlate refusal to play in the sun with emotional/psychological problems. Not polite words, anyway.
You know, my vocabulary expanded a thousandfold when I tried to articulate how I feel about the school. When I couldn’t find the appropriate curse, I invented.
I agree with Starshadow Rivaulx. Aren’t the school administration aware that getting under the sun past 10AM is to healthy?! Even doctors do not advise staying under the sun from 10AM to 3PM! I can’t imagine how ignorant they are! They are very narrow-minded to suspect that the kid is just lazy to attend her PE class. Considering the “osteoporosis issue” last month, I think the school administration should be the one to undergo psychological examination.
It’s scoliosis, actually. And, yes, I agree that the school needs to seriously reassess its attitude and its procedures.
The 11 a.m. P.E. class was their schedule for an entire school year. And this is the tropics. Amazing, huh?
Sorry about that. Scoliosis nga pala yun!
Really amazing! It is the only school I saw where PE class is held at this hour. I was once a college instructor and you will not see anybody in the open field after 10AM. PE classes are held early in the morning or later in the afternoon, unless the class is held in the covered gym.
Ibalik sa eskwelahan ang mga yan! Or maybe DepEd can do something about it?
The covered gym was converted into classrooms. And there are no PE options. It’s football only. Masakit, the tuition is horrific.
Connie,that creep(J.S.) not only attracted attention but infuriated thousands of parents and medical professionals who are involve in the care and treatment of children with allergies.
Browneyed girl….I’m sorry to hear about your kids.I don’t think
it’s necessary to spend money to be tested for food allergies when
you know that the cause of the rashes and itching are from the heat and
sweating.Moisturizing after bathing helps also.Drinking plenty of H2O
is a must.Try applying Vaseline cream or Vani cream.Good luck!
I know! I spent three hours reading all the references to it. Grabe!
I just noticed that I have skin reactions to the sun.
& it gets stingy on my arms & maybe legs when I run laps on the track.
it’s like 10:45- 11:30 am for my P.E class.
I just hate the stingy & itchy part of it.