New to this forum...have a question.

Have any of you heard of getting insurance to pay for tanning as it helps with the horrible itching? I tanned 1-2x / week in may and June to prep for a trip to Jamaica in July and I experienced a HUGE decrease in my itching. When I stopped tanning (& about 2 months after my vacation was over) the itching is coming back with a vengeance. Anyone else notice something like this? Not only do I have PBC, I am diabetic too. So I'm on 2 oral diabetes meds, insulin, cholesterol medicine, Urso. and I have cyproheptadine and Xanax for when the itching gets really bad! (Like today. 😩

[Hidden]

Not on the NHS in the UK I haven't.

I know you can have a short course of sunbed treatment for severe psoriasis as an old pal of mine used to have at intervals due to her psoriasis.

My skin tans easily, always has and in the summer months it does go rather dark and I look like I've just come off a foreign holiday in a very hot climate. I notice for the first time recently that the tan is fading which didn't seem to occur previously (I was diagnosed with PBC December 2010 after starting to itch intensely early 2010).

Unfortunately for me I have found on a UK holiday (had 2 this year, Pembroke/Ceredigion areas of Wales and Cornwall, weather was much hotter than the North west), for me the itch doesn't seem to stop. I have found that heat makes me feel more pricklier than I do when I am cool (like currently with the temps dropping drastically now we are late 2016).

Itching for me altered within a couple years of taking the urso. I tend to itch later at night (around 11p.m) and it seems to have vanished by around 6a.m. I do feel prickly at intervals, depends what I am doing. I find that if I am speaking on the telephone for eg and your arm is bent, I feel prickly and then itchy on the bend, same if I bend down, I get it behind my knees where I am bending. I put that down to restricted blood flow temporarily that then causes the itching.

Your itch sounds to be a bit more intense than mine is. I've not yet asked for any meds to try as I know with the Questran (or colestryamine) it can be hit and miss for the itching of PBC. I only take the urso.

[KatherineM_PBC]

Where do you live, anywhere near Heathrow Airport? I run a tanning salon I use sunbeds all year round, perhaps that's why I have my itch under control, never thought about that!

[Becca75]

it's not the tanning - it's a UV therapy and it's done at hospitals for more dermatologist type stuff. I called a hospital already about it and they said they don't do it for the itching. I haven't talked to my dr about it - as my itching has really come down since taking prednisone for the AI and my bile salts have been coming down too (which causes the itching).