Well, time to become a detective...

Look at all the things you share... bug bites (mosquito and tick),
vaccines (did you all get flu shots?), water (have it tested,for heavy metals), airborne (formaldehyde outgassing in the house, mold spores, industrial fumes, second hand smoke), foods (arsenic in rice, too much green stuff (see the recent post here on oxalate excess), that awful Himalyan salt,
the stuff you wash your clothes in (get sensitive soaps).

One thing that is a big cause of photosensitive dermatitis is the blue green algae in water. Right now Northern Ohio is having another microcystin attack from Lake Erie in their municipal water supply. This invisible to the naked eye, organism sits on skin that was exposed to the water, and reacts with UV to form dermatitis. Many people where we live in summers, have had this reaction including me. Many are fishermen who get this on their hands and arms.

http://www.tpchd.org/environment/sur...cyanobacteria/

Search the internet for an environmental doctor...they have a website, that might be helpful. Or call your local hospital to see if they know of a doctor who specializes in toxins.
http://www.aaemonline.org/referral.php

Oh no...Blue green algae, what's wrong with Himalyan salt?

I don't trust that salt.... I found a website listing all the minerals in it (from chemical analysis) and I don't think something like it coming from Pakistan is safe basically. That is just my opinion, though.

Blue green algae killed a couple of dogs in my neck of the woods. And it also made a child very sick. Not something you want to get into.

We get that toxic blue green algae here too. I had to keep my last dog (Blue Heeler) out of the water especially during early spring. I'm lucky that the current dog hates water and goes so far as to step around puddles when on walks. He is a herding dog and apparently he didn't read the Australian Shepherd manual that says he is supposed to like water.

Wow Mrs D.


I just did a quick search on cyanobacteria. We go swimming every summer in lakes. I am very overwhelmed.
The only thing is that if we were all exposed at the same lake one year, it wouldn't match up with the symptoms starting with me in 2013 and the kids more recently. It makes me suspect a more chronic exposure.

It's making me think about the poland spring water cooler we have though. If we had one tainted 5 gallon jug it could have contaminated the cooler and we just keep drinking it??? No one would ever know. There could be many people affected and the link just hasn't been found because PN is so often idiopathic.
I am the one in this house who definitely drinks the most water. But.....when we go away for a week I don't get better? Just brainstorming out loud.