PMLE: It’s Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Well, I guess it never left.
It’s not something that just goes away, from what I’ve read.
Which is why I had suspected that I never actually had it in the first place, because I had no symptoms of it over the past few summers.
But cue my first run in the early April sun today and guess what happens?
PMLE symptoms! The itching, the redness, the basketball texture on my forearms. The eruptions. Very reminiscent of…whenever the last time was I had symptoms.
I strongly suspect that this thing has been “dormant” the past few years because a) I have been consistently wearing my long sleeve sun shirt thingy on my summer walks, and b) most of my summer runs have been at like 2 AM where – surprise, surprise – there is no sunlight to trigger the eruptions.
So yeah. I’m assuming that will happen now when I’m out in the sun for a while, at least until my arms “harden” or I start wearing my sun shirt. I guess we’ll see.
Fun times.
ERUPTION
YO, NERDS!
So I finally went to the doctor to see about the crazy arm rashes I’ve been getting, and it sounds like I have polymorphous light eruption.
It sounds super cool, but it basically means I’m allergic/sensitive to UV light. It’s a delayed reaction where you’re fine when you’re out in the sun but after the sun exposure occurs, then your immune system starts going “OH SHIT” and reacts to it, causing rough-looking rashes/blisters and lots and lots of itching.
Here’s more:
So, you know, no big deal.
I’m just out in the sun for four hours to get my 15-mile walk in every day.
N o p r o b l e m .
And no, sunscreen doesn’t prevent it. I’ll either have to wear long sleeves or suffer the itch/redness. But for some people it seems to “flare” at the beginning of spring/summer when there’s more sun, but if they let it blister up and then heal, it “hardens” the skin against it until next spring/summer. We’ve been having a lot of cloudy/rainy days this week and my rash is almost gone, so maybe my arms will have healed enough by the time it gets super sunny again. WHO KNOWS, IT’S AN ADVENTURE.
Edit: well it’s mid-July now and the “eruptions” have definitely diminished a lot. So I either don’t have this at all and my arms were just being spazzes, or, like some people, I flared up at the first major spring exposures to sunlight and then “got used to it.” Odd news.
A Wild Blog Appears!
I have Type III skin!
The Fitzpatrick Skin Typing Test is used to classify skin types by how people react to sun exposure and is also used to enhance treatment for skin cancers.
Type III skin is “light olive” and seen for people with pretty much any eye and hair color but is most common for people with chestnut hair and hazel eyes. It is common among Mediterranian type Caucasians, and some Hispanics. People with Type III skin sometimes get “mild burns” and “gradually tan.”
Check out your skin type here!
Eigenblogger 