A medical mystery

I always knew that one day something about me would make a scientist scratch his head, shrug his shoulders and declare that I’m just a bit weird.

Granted, I thought that it would be my brain, my lack of memory or maybe my sense of humour and not my ACHOO syndrome (no, I’m not making this up), but hey, I won’t be picky. I’ll take what I’m given.

In case you’re wondering, the syndrome (more commonly known as photic sneeze reflex or sun-sneezing) is a condition which causes people to sneeze when they first look at the sun. And I do. As soon as the sunrays hit my eyes, my nostrils go into an excitable frenzy. It’s like they’ve seen daylight for the first time. Every time.

Don’t be concerned though:

1. There are worse things they could get excited about.


2. I love sneezing.


3. It’s not a condition that has any debilitating effects. In fact, it’s not even so much a condition as it is a genetic coding error…or at least as far as scientists are aware.

The truth is that scientists don’t really care. For a time they got vaguely interested and came up with a theory that in some people, the optical and trigeminal nerves get a little bit lost (or in the words of this article “the wires are crossed a little...and so shining a light in the eye "accidentally" activates two different outgoing pathways"). No surprises that I should be one of these people? No, I didn’t think so.

Anyway, since it’s hardly a thrilling subject, scientists soon lost interest. After all they have more important things to think about. So my genetic condition – one I share with some 18-30% of the world – is not really being investigated.

This of course means that at any given time, for no apparent reason, several million noses applaud sunshine without quite knowing why.

But this is one mystery "special gift" that I’ve decided to take advantage of. I’m going to gather other sun-sneezers and stage a protest…or a concert. I’m not sure which, but I’m open to suggestions…