How wine can turn you into a werewolf (And the bad news is, we're not
joking)
By Ken Walker
Last updated at 10:20 PM on 19th January 2009
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When he developed a striking suntan after a Caribbean holiday, KEN
WALKER was rather pleased with himself. But when his nails and skin
started working loose and he began sprouting strange facial hair, he
realised something was terribly wrong.

Although a doctor himself, the 45-year-old was shocked to be told his
wine drinking was having a nightmarish effect on his body...
With hindsight, it didn't start on holiday, but that's when it started
to raise its ugly head. It was the final day of a fortnight spent on
the Caribbean island of Tobago, and my wife and I were waiting for a
taxi to the airport.
Although he's a doctor, Ken Walker was still shocked to discover the
devastating effect his wine drinking was having on his body

Along the side of my forefinger I noticed five or six tense blisters,
each one about a quarter of an inch across. I put it down to having
touched some coral when snorkelling the day before. At least the rest
of me looked healthy.
As someone with a Scottish heritage (not quite the red hair and
freckles, but with a definite luminosity) I wasn't used to looking
like Dale Winton just after a re-spray - my suntan was unexpectedly
spectacular. Even my wife was impressed.
About a week after getting home, I noticed something very weird
happening with my big toenails. There seemed to be fluid underneath
the nails and they were working loose. I figured my toenails could
have been damaged by wearing flippers while snorkelling and diving on
holiday.
When the same thing started happening to a few of my fingernails, it
was less easy to explain. The final straw came when I bought a new
pair of shoes and tried to put them on.
When I hooked my finger into the shoe and pulled, the skin on the back
of the finger simply got scraped away from the gentle rub on my heel,
leaving a bleeding, raw stripe.
My GP had never come across anything like it

About three months after the holiday, I finally went to my GP -
although I'm a hospital doctor, I'd never come across anything like
this before in practice, or during my medical training.
My GP was as mystified as I was by these strange symptoms, but did
figure out that the person I needed to see was a dermatologist. I got
an emergency appointment, given that something quite nasty seemed to
be happening, and was seen by an NHS consultant within a week. The
diagnosis was made within a few minutes - I had one of a group of
diseases called the porphyrias, affecting around 3,000 people in the
UK.
There are at least 16 different varieties of the disease. Weirdly,
given the fact that my skin was affected, my variety turned out to be
caused by liver problems. The name comes from the Greek word for
'purple', and it's a disease that is all about pigment. I had also
noticed that my urine had been quite dark for some time.
In my particular variety of porphyria, called porphyria cutanea tarda,
one of the enzymes needed to make haemoglobin - the pigment that gives
blood its colour - was running low in my liver. Another pigment was
trying to be haemoglobin, but hadn't quite made it and was sloshing
around in my system. That's why my urine was a strange colour - and
why I had such a weird Hollywood tan.
Your teeth and eyes can also be stained by the pigments, a 'bonus' I
was mercifully spared.
Furthermore, when this pigment reacts with sunlight, it also creates
chemicals that do strange things to your skin and nails. It loosens
them.
Polyphyria is thought to be the condition behind such myths as
werewolves and vampires. Picture from American Werewolf in London

That explained the blisters, the nails dropping off (I found out later
that the term for this is photoonycholysis) and the fact that I could
rub off skin from the back of my hands and fingers simply by drying
them too vigorously with a towel.
Some types of porphyria, including mine, have one other weird,
inexplicable symptom. You get extra hair growing on your face. Between
my lower eyelids and my normal beardline, I was having to shave for
the first time ever.
Not just downy 'bum-fluff' either, but fully- developed dark
bristles.
Unfortunately, porphyria doesn't give you extra hair where you really
want it as a middleaged man and my temples stayed as bald as ever.
I had turned into a strange-coloured man with weird facial hair who
had to avoid the sun. No wonder porphyria is often thought to be the
medical condition behind such myths as werewolves and vampires.
The dependence on alcohol was difficult to deny

After some tests on my blood, urine and, embarrassingly, my stools, it
was determined that the cause of my condition was quite simple - too
much booze.
Even though I didn't think I had been drinking that much, it was more
than my liver could cope with. For a few years up to the sunny holiday
that triggered my symptoms, I'd been downing increasing quantities of
wine, despite my wife's protests that I was drinking too much.
Dependence on alcohol is easy to deny, especially given that alcohol
is one of the best de-stressers known to mankind.
Looking back, a bottle of wine every night and possibly two a night
over the weekends was far too much.
Losing my skin and nails was thankfully a wake-up call - had I carried
on drinking that amount, not only would my porphyria have got worse,
but permanent liver damage in the form of cirrhosis would not have
been far off.
With this particular type of porphyria, the only truly effective
treatment was to give up the booze and give my liver a rest.
Other people who suffer from porphyria have congenital deficiencies of
essential enzymes and suffer lifelong problems with - as yet - no
known cure.
Until then I hadn't realised just how much of my life revolved around
alcohol.
But for a year I didn't touch a drop, using my porphyria as the
excuse. Telling people you have a 'medical condition' is a lot easier
than telling them you've simply been drinking too much.
For about a year after my sunny Caribbean holiday, I wore cotton
gloves around the house to protect my skin, and stayed well away from
strong sunlight.
Slowly, my fingers and toes regained their nails, and my skin became
less fragile. But it took the best part of a year before my liver
function returned to normal and about another six months until my skin
regained its normal degree of toughness.
I can't tell you how good it felt when I accidentally scraped my
knuckles on the inside of a drawer and came away unscathed for the
first time in months.
My face got a little less hairy as well, although I still have to
shave in places where I never needed to before.
Two years on, I reckon I have recovered completely. I say 'reckon'
because at my school reunion recently hardly anyone recognised me. My
skin is apparently still far darker now than it was back then.
I recently went on holiday to a sunny destination and have managed to
return home without falling to bits. I even drank the odd cocktail
while I was there, but I'm careful about how much I drink.
With my particular type of porphyria being entirely down to my liver,
I've decided that 'Look after your liver, and it will look after you'
is a good motto for us all to live by. www.porphyria.org.uk
-------------------

Who loves ya.
Tom

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