Talk:Photosensitivity in humans

Location

This should either redirect to photophobia or perhaps a disambiguation page - I can certainly see where "light sensitivity" might be construed as a degree of affliction. Orethrius 21:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, well caught. I've updated the redirect. dewet|✉ 21:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

A lot of light-sensitivity-related topics turn up in various artificial lighting articles such as Fluorescent lamp and Compact fluorescent lamp - instead of duplicating these, there seems to be enough to support an article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This sort of thing got updated hourly when it was part of the lamp articles, but now goes months without ever feeling a human editor's touch. Why? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe this article is different to photophobia, which refers specifically to the visual perception of light; photosensitivity may refer to other sites in the body. LT90001 (talk) 13:17, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge

Support. These two issues should be merged because there is significant cross-over in content and utility. LT90001 (talk) 13:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

In the absence of any objections, I have merged phototoxicity with this article. LT90001 (talk) 02:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I missed this merge proposal, but would have objected had I seen it. Phototoxicity is a property possessed by certain plants, resulting from their chemical composition; this has interest from a botanical point of view (i.e. which plants, which chemicals, what are the mechanisms involved etc.), not just in relation to its effect on humans. I think the merge should be reversed. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:40, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I've posted a note at the Plants WikiProject (of which I am a member) to see if any other editors there wish to comment. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:05, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comment. I didn't realise there'd be relevance to plants. If you look at the merged content, it was just relating to humans. So, maybe you could change the page to a disambiguation, or alter the redirect's target?. WP:Plants input would be welcomed LT90001 (talk) 07:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I came here after seeing the posting at WT:PLANTS, not having seen the merger proposal. Indeed, a list of what plants produce this kind of reaction would be useful, perhaps called something like Phototoxicity of plants. A run-in with giant hogweed should convince any sceptic about the importance of the information. A google scholar search for "phototoxicity" produces much material about the effects of antibiotics, but there is also this article about the problem that all life has to protect itself from photons. It looks as if Phototoxicity needs to be an article with several sections that point to other main articles, something like Photosensitivity is now (but separate from that article). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:26, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a sensible approach to me; Phototoxicity and Photosensitivity strike me as being articles which complement each other, as subjects of the former cause the reactions of the latter. (And though I've never had a run-in with giant hogweed, I have experienced what can happen when one cuts back Euphorbia characias without protection on a hot day; no wonder a customer of mine referred to them as "triffids"...) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

What did you do about the little bit on phototoxicity in livestock/animals? It seems inappropriate to delete encyclopedic info. -AfadsBad (talk) 08:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello, to be clear, no information was deleted; it is all in this article. By this I mean I have transferred all information into this article and that the original article had no information on livestock or plants. Now that this has been raised as an issue, please add the relevant animal + plant information to that article article. To undo a revert, search that page in wikipedia, and then click on the item at the top of the page you are redirected to. I'm sorry to have created this mess; the original article had no mention of any animal or plant data so I wasn't to know about this. Kind Regards, LT90001 (talk) 09:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I think this comment from the phototoxicity article "Light-induced toxicity is a common phenomenon in humans; however, it might occur also in other animals," suggests the move was not correct. I am in the wilderness and editing is tricky, maybe you can revert yourself for now, having made the change in error? The article needs a lot of work that could be done instead of debating the merge. -AfadsBad (talk) 14:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

It turns out that there's the beginning of a list of offending plants at Phytophotodermatitis, which could be hugely expanded. There's also Photodermatitis. Photosensitivity says "not to be confused with photodermatitis", and the article maintains that distinction except for listing solar urticaria under See also. That doesn't make much sense to me, but perhaps a medical expert would see it as a useful distinction. I'm confused. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:21, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion. Allright, I've reverted the changes. Now that we've all put in our two cents, how about somebody actually change the offending article (phototoxicity) so that it does make some mention of plants? LT90001 (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Made an attempt at that. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't beat yourself up over this LT90001; although it can be a bit wearying at times, disagreement and reversions are just part of how Wikipedia works. I can see why you wanted to merge the articles, but think this might have stemmed from the fact that, in my view, the articles are confused about what they are covering. As Sminthopsis84 has discovered, this appears to be one of those rather horrific areas of Wikipedia where there are a multitude of articles all covering rather similar things. There is overlap, but not necessarily total alliance. There are already a couple of brief mentions of plants in the Phototoxicity article, but the questions are: how should that information be expanded, and how does it relate to other aspects of the article and to the other articles? To me, phototoxicity and photosensitivity are 2 aspects of the same concept or process; they have an object-subject kind of relationship, rather like poison and poisoning. However this is just my interpretation; it would be useful to have reliable sources which make a distinction explicit. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Absolutely, don't beat yourself up over this LT90001. Wading through this morass is the only way forward. (We plant editors might seem unnaturally cool with this sort of tangle, but that comes from years of struggling with the tsunami of confusion that is wikipedia's treatment of just about anything to do with plants or biodiversity.)

There seems to be another sub-problem here, that photosensitivity says it is a skin reaction, but photophobia involves a problem with light in the eyes, and then links to photosensitivity. I don't think that is correct, unless the eye is considered to be skin (blood is considered a "tissue", so I wouldn't be totally surprised if eyes were considered epidermis, or something). This seems to need considerable medical expertise to sort out, which I don't have. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

This abstract is interesting, as it defines phototoxicity as a causal subset within broader photosensitivity. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

You don't say! This multitude of mean, emaciated-looking photoarticles, about light hurting living things by virtue of compounds inside your skin, all with related names and covering much the same stuff, has me headdesking. This could be a long, nice, fascinating article, but it is instead a colection of related fragments which are a bother to wade through. They should ALL merge! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.96.68 (talk) 03:46, 31 August 2013 (UTC)