Staying Fit
Find out which medications don't mix well with sun exposure.
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This summer, check your medications before you head out into the sun. Many common drugs, including some over-the-counter painkillers and allergy medicines, will increase your susceptibility to painful sunburns and other skin problems or up your risk of heatstroke.
"We see this a lot; it's very common," emergency room physician Robert Glatter says of sun-related side effects. "People need to read the side effect profiles as regards the environment when they are taking certain medications."
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Glatter, who practices at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, says several antibiotics are a frequent cause of summertime trips to the ER.
"People will take them and then go to the beach, and we'll see them come in beet red with a head-to-toe sunburn," Glatter says. "This is what's called a phototoxic reaction."
"The majority of these drugs give you an exaggerated sunburn, but others might give you immediate burning," says dermatologist Lorraine Young, cochief of dermatology clinical services and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Your sunburn will be redder, more painful, more widespread—a worse sunburn, as if you were out in the sun longer than you actually were."
In addition to sunburns, some medications can cause allergic reactions—rashes, itching, blistering—to sunlight, sometimes several days after you were outside, says Kirby Lee, an associate professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Many drugs also up your risk of heatstroke, a dangerous condition that requires immediate medical attention. They do this by reducing your body's ability to sweat, increasing the amount that you urinate, and decreasing your thirst so that you're less likely to drink an adequate amount of fluids, says Lee, who specializes in geriatrics and dementia. "Heatstroke symptoms can come on quite rapidly, especially in older adults, who often take more than one medication that raises their risk of overheating."
The following list is not comprehensive, but it does include the most common culprits. These drugs up your risk of sunburn, heatstroke or, in many cases, both:
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