Staring at the sun directly is usually just makes your eyes
sting because of too much glare. But for 18-35 percent of people who have
photic sneeze reflex, against the sun can also make your nose itch and sneezing.
One of the patients with this disorder is Dr. Roberta Pagon, strike
pediatrician from Seattle Children's Hospital. Every time his eyes staring at
the sun, his reaction was immediate sneezing and not once but three times in a row.
Histories of sneezing as she gazed at the sun are also experienced by the two
sons of Dr. Pagon, who happened to be always sneezing 3 times. Now, his
grandson also started to show a similar trend although the number of sneezes
which is only a little more time.
At a scientific conference, Dr. Pagon again
found that 4 of 10 colleagues also have a tendency sneeze when looking at the
sun. Sneezing sometimes also occur when other light sources involves blinding,
like a camera flash.
After discussion, Dr. Pagon and some colleagues made an
acronym or abbreviation for acquired problems that ACHOO Syndrome. Autosomal Dominant
Compelling is Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO), among others, passed on
through genes.
Although it sounds unique, a tendency to sneeze when looking at
the sun or who have a photic sneeze reflex the official term is actually not
really rare. An estimated 18-35 percent of the human experience with the
severity of which varies.
Dr. Pagon
added, there are at least two theories that could explain this trend. First,
the sneeze reflex is formed in the brain stem or spinal cord that works very
sensitive to light, especially the dazzling effect.
The second possibility is
the position of the optic nerve is too close to the trigeminal nerves that also
come into play when sneezing. Nicolas Langer, PhD, neurosurgeon at the
University of Zurich said, if the optic nerve trigeminal nerve is activated it
will immediately trigger a sneeze.
In general, these disorders do not cause
serious harm. However, as quoted by MSNBC, the disorder can be very dangerous
for certain professions such as airline pilots, baseball and other extreme
activities that require concentration.
