Positives

• One patient experiencing long COVID symptoms shared that they have been feeling better recently, attributing part of their recovery to UV light therapy Reddit.
  
  

Negatives

• A PMC review of phototherapy adverse effects flagged photoaging and photocarcinogenesis among the long-term concerns of UVB therapy, particularly when sessions accumulate beyond a brief course; the reviewers advised caution about high-session counts in darker skin phototypes due to skin cancer risk. PMC.
• MD Anderson Cancer Center notes that any UV light approach used for non-medical wellness purposes carries a real lifetime skin cancer risk, particularly when administered without dermatologist oversight or session-count tracking. Mdanderson.

Hurdles & Side Effects

• Phototherapy reviews note acute side effects including skin erythema, xerosis, pruritus, blistering, and altered pigmentation, all of which can be more burdensome for already-symptom-burdened Long COVID patients than for the dermatology populations these treatments were originally designed for. ScienceDirect.
• A typical narrowband UVB course involves multiple in-clinic sessions per week over weeks to months, a time commitment that can be hard for Long COVID patients with PEM to sustain without triggering crashes from the travel and standing time alone. Theharleystreetdermatologyclinic.