Some prescriptions come with a warning that you should stay out of the sun while taking the medication because the drug makes you more sensitive to sunburn. This is called photosensitivity or phototoxicity.
There are plants in the wild and even in your own garden that you may inadvertently touch that do the same thing. One of the worst, wild parsnip, grows in open areas and along road and trail sides. Nothing happens immediately when you touch the plant – or it touches you, most likely on your lower legs or ankles – but as soon as you are exposed to the ultraviolet light of the sun, severe burns can occur quickly. You may not even realize that you have been in contact with the plant until the burn occurs. The burn often appears as long streaks where a leaf or stem dragged across your skin. This burn hurts just as much as if you had run a hot coal over your skin and should be treated as you would any other burn.
Wild parsnip spends its first year with a rosette of ferny-looking leaves close to the ground. The next year it sends up a flower stalk with tiny yellow flowers in flat-topped umbrella-like clusters. Think Queen Anne’s lace, but yellow, like dill. The flower stalks can grow to 4 feet tall.
May apple, a spring blooming plant found in wooded areas, is another plant that is phototoxic. You should stay away from it anyway, since all parts of the plant are poisonous except the fruit, and that is safe for only a very short time period in its development. May apples poke up from the ground looking like a closed patio table umbrella. Soon the leafy umbrellas open to reveal two or three 8-12” deeply lobed leaves. Hidden under the leaves is a single bud that develops into the most beautiful white flower you’ve ever seen. If you want to see the flower, use a stick or something to lift the leaves to avoid touching them. The flower matures into a round greenish fruit an inch or two in diameter.
Some other plants that are commonly grown in herb gardens are phototoxic as well, but not to the same degree as wild parsnip. Still, wash thoroughly after coming into contact with plant juices from dill, angelica, celery, coriander, fennel, lovage, parsley, anise, and rue before exposing your skin to the sun.
You know how they say you can get sunburnt even on a cloudy day, but nobody really believes that? You’ll find out that it’s true if you’ve been in contact with a phototoxic plant!
As a side note, people who drink margaritas with limes or lime juice, and the bartenders who mix them, should avoid the sun as skin contact with or drinking the juice causes phototoxicity. So does eating or drinking an infusion of licorice, ginger, turmeric, lemon, bitter orange, goldenseal and St. John’s wort.
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