A 40-year-old man showed up to an allergy clinic in Texas with a severe, burning rash on both his hands that had developed two days earlier. A couple of days later, it blistered. And a few weeks after that, the skin darkened and scaled. After several months, the skin on his hands finally returned to normal.
The culprit: lime juice and sunlight.
It turns out that just before developing the nasty skin eruption, the man had manually squeezed a dozen limes, then headed to an outdoor soccer game without applying sunscreen. His doctors diagnosed the man’s rash as a classic case of phytophotodermatitis.
Never would have thought that “avoiding the sun while covered in large amounts of lime juice” was a thing I would have to do…
manually squeezed a dozen limes, then headed to an outdoor soccer game
Or as I call it: Saturday afternoon.
Lime’s Disease.
Though it’s likely not top-of-mind for most cooks, the phenomenon has been noted for centuries. For instance, in ancient Egypt, people who experienced loss of skin pigment (vitiligo) would treat the condition by covering their skin with the juice of false bishop’s weed (Ammi majus) and then lying in the sun to darken their skin. The weed contains two psoralen derivates that can darken skin upon exposure to UV light. But, it’s a risky treatment as too much psoralens and/or too much light can easily cause a harsh case of phytophotodermatitis
This is my favorite part of this story. I actually have vitiligo. I have a newer patch on my leg, about the size of an egg. It got sunburned pretty badly this past summer, but as it peeled and healed, it actually re-pigmented about 80%. For those who don’t know vitiligo is what led Michael Jackson to wear a glove on one hand, and eventually bleach his face. I guess all he needed was some mild phytophotodermatitis.
