I haven't been posting here for a couple of months because I've been spending all of my time at the new MP/Benicar Yahoo group. Now that we've learned to pay attention and observe the effects of the sun, YES INDEED, it does make a huge difference, which we were never aware of before, as explained by Doc Dave above.Oddly enough, the Lymie in our household was able to get by with some sun exposure over the July 4th holiday with only minimal symptoms because she has improved so much overall, following long-term abx treatment for LD. However, she did notice a delayed flare-up of minor symptoms during the couple of days after her sun exposure. The advantage now though is that at least she can recognize this cause and effect relationship, and that puts her back in control again, so that she can plan around it, by either avoiding the sun or by arranging her plans to allow for the expected after-effects.
What surprised us the most was that Hubby had such bad reactions to his sun exposures. Just riding for 5 hours in an older car without tinted windows was enough to cause him to have painful peripheral neuropathy in his feet. so that he didn't sleep well the first night at all. Before learning to correlate this symptom with sun exposure, we were helpless to prevent it. Now, at least we know what causes it.
Then, just this week he decided to work out in the yard for about 2-3 hrs late in the evening, after the sun was already low in the sky, thinking that he could get by with it. Not so. He had a really bad leg cramp afterwards, for which he had to take Rx quinine sulfate.
This second episode was enough to make a believer out of him and he asked me to book him an appointment with the dermatologist so that he could get his D-metabolites measured, too.
Hubby has had skin lupus ever since he took Lariam, prescribed prophylactically against malaria during a trip abroad ten years ago. We didn't realize that his systemic symptoms were related to sun exposures though until learning to observe for them.
Who would ever had thought that the sun was doing this, causing systemic symptoms, huh? -- until Trevor Marshall came along and explained it all for us at his SarcInfo website. What an eye-opener that's been for our whole family.
Even a close family friend who visited with us during the July 4th holiday had an asthma attack after having been out in the sun swimming during the afternoon. He hadn't had an asthma attack in over six months prior to this one either. Hmmm...? The main point is that each person's systemic symptoms were vastly different, but definitely related to the sun holiday.
Regarding the effects of summer heat, though, that seems to be a bit different. I think the effect of summer heat has more to do with dehydration. Even I, who am relatively healthy, find that I do much better during the intense summer heat if I drink Gookinaid on a summer workday. www.gookinaid.com
If I keep my electrolytes balanced with Gookinaid, I can almost keep up with the younger crowd and work along at their pace without pooping out, and I'm no spring chicken. Remember, this is Texas, where our summer heat is often above 100* for up to 6-8 hours from mid-July to mid-September. So, for me, it's not so much the UV rays as it is just the intense heat -- but that's much easier to deal with now when we all drink Gookinaid during our family work days.
Here's the deal though. The active form of vitamin D is actually a secosteroidal hormone, and when it's elevated above physiological range, it can throw off the other hormones. Folks who are taking Benicar are finding that it's balancing out their hormones so that they can throw away their thyroid pills which were prescribed for Hashimoto's auto-immune thyroiditis. In fact, they get into trouble unless they at least lower their thyroid hormone dosages -- and it all happens pretty quickly, too, within just the first couple of weeks, and even before they re-introduce antibiotics. Amazing.
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