Why does even 5 minutes of sun cause headache - and 10 mins cause nausea?

It is quite clear that what some of us experience with nausea, headache, etc. after sun exposure is NOT dehydration or heat stroke. Medical people tend to get into ruts and if there is something outside their understanding, they force the symptoms into what they know. It doesn't make it so. I'm 71 and well familiar with the responses of my body to sun exposure. Serious research will be required to understand the pattern of sun exposure and symptoms some of us experience. I recommend that people with this problem do serious hydration and protect themselves from direct exposure but I am certain that for some of us it is not the same as what happens to virturally anyone who becomes dehydrated or clearly has undergone damaging sun exposure.

Thanks to everyone who submitted information, this has been really great for me to read. I just started having this problem this year - both times were related to sun exposure, and within an hour I had visual auras followed by nausea and throbbing unilateral head pain - the classic migraine. I'm actually a medical student and am one of those people who can probably go without drinking literally all day unless I make myself. Looking back on in now I should have figured: I was in the hospital today, all I had to drink was coffee, and then when I went outside it was sunny and near 90 degrees. I was only out for a few minutes but that apparently was enough! I'm making a commitment to improve my hydration starting TODAY - it's not worth this misery!

Okay guys, I have/had the same issue until I realized in my case it isn't about dehydration. After sunburn I got migraine types headaches, no painkiller helps, also hard to digest food, sometimes throwing up. Nothing helped, only if I waited 1-2 days it is slowly fade out and everything was fine. I found a solution to fix my problem, I hope it will help all of you. It is about liver overreaction, the gall dysfunction. Liver having extra work to produce pigments to your skin and I think sometimes couldn't handle the two things together. What I use is Cholagol drops on sugar. It will solve my problem in 30-60 minutes. I hope this will help.

http://www.pharmoutlet.com/products/Cholagol-drops-10ml

Tamas

Wow, I just read the above post(who also posted on May 15, 2012). That part about the organs getting used to taking in only so much water is scary. I'm one of those people who can go without drinking anything all day unless I make a conscious effort to do so. There were times when all I drank was coffee(really bad since it's a diuretic). Oftentimes I get this sunken in eye look and if I drink water it tends to go away. So maybe I do suffer from severe dehydration. Thank you so much for your post - I will try to get hydrated and sip water throughout the day. -K

After my test on myself which I posted on "May 15, 2012 - 10:25pm" 'page 9'

I seemed to do better out in the sun after I did the sipping water for some days in a row (I was not able to get out into the sun every day to test it out, but I wasn't affected by the sun much when I went on a trip, and was outside most of the time). Because of the water sipping I didn't get sick as often as I usually do when I am out in the sun.

I think I still need to work at sipping more water, so I can get over the DEEP DEHYDRATION (I thought I was drinking enough water but it looked like my body was not absorbing water like it should have).

I hope this information helps you as well!!

I wrote two posts ago(July 8). For me, I think that it's definitely the sun that causes a bad reaction. Even if I'm in a cool room but there's a sky light, that light makes me sick. I walk around with a sun protection umbrella and shades at all times. I don't have migraines or the pain in my eyelids. When I tell people about this problem they ask if I have Lupus. I haven't been checked but it seems as though I'd have more symptoms. Has anyone checked? Is anyone who is experiencing this anemic? -K

I will add more to my contribution above.
Try wearing a good shades along with a baseball cap or a hat with good lid. Despite the glasses, the bright ray can still penetrate, cap will provide the shades to block most of the direct sunlight along with the shades.
Nepali

I think I might have a solution worth trying.
You all hit the right cause: Sunlight, but didn't focus on light as much as you did on heat. I think heat and dehydration contributes to the headache but its the bright sunlight that could trigger the pain more rapidly.
Have you noticed that when you feel your eyelids (with your eyes closed) with your fingers during the attack, it hurts. The pain seem to be radiating from eyelid to the head.
If your symptom matches this (or if you get migraine when you go outside in a sunny day), my suggestion is to wear a good shades/sunglasses, before you even go outside. Try not to expose your eyes to the bright light, wearing sunscreen in your face might help too.
Worth trying.

It's so good to hear that I'm not the only one with sun issues. When I was a baby my parents took me to the beach and I had a sun stroke. As a child I was able to play outdoors with no problems. In high school and college I avoided the sun because of feeling overheated. But as I get older, the sun affects me more intensely. Now I get flushed after a few minutes in the sun, dizzy, headachy and nauseous. It takes me all night to recover and I'm usually burnt even after a short time with sun exposure. It doesn't help if I'm outdoors under cover like a tent because I get affected by the rays. I was at the mall yesterday under a sun roof(very high ceiling) for about half an hour and I got burnt and felt sick all night. This morning my body felt heavy and I still had a headache. I am anemic(thalassemia) but I don't know if it's related to that. Even sitting indoors near a window makes me sick. I hope that I can find a solution because it's so hard to deal with this, especially since I live in Hawaii.