Many moons ago, when I was still a poor uni student working multiple jobs to make ends meet, I remember one of my fellow childcare workers would rarely be seen outside without his sunglasses. It became something of a recurring joke as, even when it wasn’t particularly bright outside, he’d be sporting them. He later explained that he kept them on constantly because sunlight would make him sneeze and indeed upon taking them off he proceeded to prove his point. I had always thought that explanation was a most likely bunk however a couple years later I started to develop similar symptoms. Whilst the coincidence felt undeniable to me I had never really looked into it, until I saw this video:
Unfortunately whilst it’s a well established phenomena the lack of known cause is a little bit disappointing. I mean it’s not exactly a debilitating condition, all it takes is a half decent pair of sunglasses to negate any effect the sun might have in this regard, but still it seems like something that should have a simple explanation. Alas investigating why sunlight makes people sneeze probably isn’t the most sexy of research topics so I’m not holding my breath for any scientific breakthroughs.
All this talk of sneezing has made my nose itch, maybe I should pop outside to clear it out 😉
http://www.diffusionradio.com/2010/08/photic_sneezing_and_a_naked_sc.html
That was very interesting, thanks! Photic sneezing being genetic was quite interesting, opens up the possibility for finding a gene responsible for it. It’d be interesting to see if companies like 23andMe could deduce a gene based on some self reported data. Probably wouldn’t help anything, but it’d be interesting none the less.