Germany’s former first lady killed herself because she was suffering from an allergy to sunlight; the allergy was allegedly triggered by a penicillin treatment in 1993.
I take tetracycline for acne. It says on the bottle that it can make one photosensitive. I’ll ask my doctor this the next time I see him, but I was wondering today, what are the chances that I could develop a similar condition? Is it extremely rare? (Maybe she had a more stigmatized illness that was reported euphemistically in the press?)
Yes, a rash upon exposure to sunlight is a well-known side effect of tetracycline. My son, who is 14, did a course of tetracycline for a weird skin rash last year, and we were told just to keep him out of the direct sun during the 8 weeks while he was on the medication.
However, I don’t know how common it is for tetracycline (or penicillin) to trigger the kind of long-lasting effects that Ms. Kohl suffered from.
As for whether the media was dealing “euphemistically” with her condition, I would say without a doubt there was something else going on, because all the websites on photodermatitis I’ve looked at have mentioned that it’s entirely possible to lead a normal life with the help of sunscreens. So I think there were other problems, too, like depression.