Working like a demented aichtee-emeller today, the microdosis apothecary site‘s now brimming with products and crappy pictures. Among them Hierba de Sapo (Toad Grass, or Eryngo), Essence of Umbilical Cord and Shark Cartilage (sp?). None of them will cure my lifetime affliction of sneezing when I see bright lights or eat strong mints. However, I’m happy to hear that I’m not alone! I am merely one of 25ish% of the population who suffers from (bit strong that, how’s about ‘experiences’) Photic Sneeze Reflex. Apparently it’s only really an issue if you’re a fighter pilot… All these years I’ve been overstimulating my trigeminal nerve without even knowing it. I bet Annelise is the only reader of this blog who’s heard of that particular ganglion…
I’m not at all sure about this microdosis malarky. Granted, vaccines are often small amounts of the thing you’re trying to gain resistence to. But I’m 99% sure you don’t feed anaemics blood to get them going again. Still, I’m just a humble hispanist so what do I know?
Pinguino Frog’s put up some more film recommendations, in Spanish, but he’s usually right on the money. If your Netflix queue needs livening up with some decent cinema, hie thee hence.
Alrighty, back to work. Hasta pronto…
Hello from Houston *waves*
ACHOO was something you’d be sure to remember for finals. Mostly because you’d never be asked about it.
Careful driving.
Your link to the Wikipedia entry probably takes us to the best account of the phenomenon.
Have a look at this site, put together by some “sufferers” (experiencers?), with some material not found anywhere else
http://www.photic-sneezing.fr.st/
The association of photic sneezing and sneezing from mints must be more common than we thought. None of the original half dozen of us who put the site together had ever heard of the mint sensitivity, but we have had plenty of correspondence about it. Not quite sure what the link is though…
Salut Martin!
Thanks for the link, I'm somewhere between an “Occasional Photic Sneezer” and a “Compulsive Photic Sneezer”. Serves me right for moving to Mexico…
A tes souhaits!
If you are between occasional and compulsive, you are in a select group. Semes' study suggests 3%-4% of the population, but this is certainly too high. This is something for the update.
And as for living in Mexico, take advantage of the weather! It's sun reflected on snow that's the worst for me, and you will not risk that. And there is nothing like the sun to make a cold disappear.
Aye, skiing sets me off and no mistake. And looking at white walls or cars in bright sun. Or just taking my sunglasses off on a sunny day. Let me know when you update your site, thanks again- gwyn
Promised !
I’ll ask for your help. One aspect that no one has investigated is the refractory period : how long can you go after the reflex has been set off until it is set off again ? Just between the three main contributors the range is between one day and one hour (sometimes less) !
In bright light I’ll sneeze about 3 times over 5 minutes then I’ll be fine for another half an hour or so. I can’t really test this right now because of my cold and the overcast skies. But if I’m eating a strong mint (like Smints for example) at the same time it’s a lot less that half an hour. When I’m back to full health I’ll get my stopwatch out. A bientôt, gwyn