A three-year-old boy is “forced” to stay indoors due to a rare condition – and it’s made summer a “nightmare”.
Cole Pugsley has to stay inside during the warm weather to protect his skin from a severe allergic reaction.
The tot suffers from polymorphic light eruption (PMLE) which causes his skin to break out in painful rashes and blisters – even after just a few minutes of sun exposure.
During the summer, mum Hanna-May Pugsley, 32 and partner, Ryan 30, have to take him and his brother, Dray, eight, out at 8am and make sure they’re home before 11am.
And it’s meant that holidays abroad are off the cards for the foreseeable future.
“Every time he goes out, even for five minutes, he flares up on any part of his body that’s exposed,” the night porter, from Arbertillery, Wales, told Need To Know.
“He’s in a lot of pain and discomfort and gets a nasty rash. It could scar.
“I dread hot weather. My mum calls to tell me if it’s going to be hot and instead of being excited I say: ‘Oh god no.’
“It’s a nightmare.
“Even if he’s in the car or sat on the sofa and the sun is coming in through the window – I have to keep him covered up completely.
“He has to wear long trousers and sleeves so he really struggles in the heat.
“There’s no cure. He takes antihistamines every day.
“I have to arrange days out when it’s raining.
“He can’t enjoy anything. He’s not going to be able to experience the summer.
“It’s changed the way we think about everything. We wanted to go to Spain in September but that’s going to have to change.
“Abroad holidays are completely off the cards until he’s older and he can make decisions for himself.
“I won’t be putting him in an uncomfortable position.
“Rather than going on holiday to a sunny place, we’ll have to go somewhere cold in the colder season.
“It’s lucky we live in Wales. If we lived anywhere hot he’d really suffer.”
Cole was diagnosed with PMLE in June 2024, when he developed hives after just ten minutes of playing in the garden.
Hanna-May said: “Every time he went in the garden or to the park, within ten minutes he would come out in a nasty red rash and sometimes it would blister.
“He’d get really hot and grizzly.
“I had a suspicion it was something to do with the sun.
“His dad didn’t believe it because he didn’t know it was a thing, [but] being his mother, I knew.
“I took him to the doctor and they said it was PMLE.”
Now, the family have decided to trade in their trip to the sunny Spanish coast for a getaway to Scotland instead.
Cole’s grandad has built a summerhouse in the family’s garden so that he can play outdoors with his brother.
But it’s been a difficult journey – and there’s still a long road ahead.
Hanna-may added: “The difficulty is applying sun cream and keeping a hat on a three-year-old.
“We have to bribe him with treats to get him to take his anti-histamines.
“We have to take him to indoor adventure parks but I feel bad for Dray when the weather’s nice.
“We have to do indoor activities like going to the aquarium.
“They’ve got new electric scooters that we can’t take them out on.
“He wants to be out playing. My dad built a summer house for him and they had a water fight but he had to stay in there.
“We used to take Dray to the beach every couple of weeks but Cole hasn’t really been.”
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