Woman's rare disease causes allergic reaction to natural, fluorescent light

The burning sensation hits her face first, while sitting in the office. The pain is so intense, worse than any sunburn, more like someone is holding a flamethrower to her skin.

Anna Lyndsey blames her computer. But the burning continues away from her desk, and then outside.

It takes some time to realize the improbable truth.

Anna is allergic to light. All light. Even the sun.The woman allergic to light sounds like a particularly dark Grimms Fairy Tale. But it’s the brutal reality for Lyndsey, 43, whose new memoir, “Girl in the Dark,” chronicles her rare condition, called photosensitive seborrhoeic dermatitis, and her life trapped in a “box of darkness.”

To survive, Lyndsey has fashioned a refuge in her house in rural England with windows taped up in layers of foil to keep any light away from her skin.

Lyndsey (a pseudonym to protect her privacy) was working at the press office of the Department of Work and Pensions gearing up for the UK general election in 2005 when the burning sensation at her computer began.