For people considering or using clinician-directed narrowband UVB, and their caregivers
What this page helps you do
If something feels or looks wrong after NB-UVB, pause further treatment and use your care plan. Record what happened and contact the treating team so they can assess the reaction and tell you what to do next.
- Your task
- Follow the practical sequence, keep the safety boundary visible, and identify the next responsible person.
- The clinician boundary
- A qualified clinician determines candidacy and the treatment plan. Use the exact current device instructions and contact the care team for reactions or changes; this page does not provide settings or treatment changes.
What should I do right now?
Pause further treatment and follow your personal action plan while you contact the phototherapy team. Seek urgent assessment for severe pain, blistering, swelling across a large area, new eye symptoms, feeling very unwell, or whenever your plan directs urgent care. Evidence Evidence
How to use this step
Your clinician-confirmed action plan should tell you whom to contact and what information the team needs. Report the concern and let the treating team choose the next treatment step.
Could it be a reaction even if my skin does not look red?
Yes. A color change can be subtle or hard to interpret, particularly in deeper skin tones. Report pain, tenderness, heat, swelling, blistering, marked itching, or another concerning change. No obvious redness does not mean it is safe to continue or change treatment on your own. Evidence Evidence
How to use this step
Comparing the area with your own baseline can be more useful than forcing it into a color label. Write down what you could feel as well as what you could see.
Should I change the next treatment or try to treat the reaction myself?
Do not adjust, catch up, restart, or create a home-care treatment for the reaction yourself. Contact your phototherapy team for advice based on your plan, skin, medicines, and device. Evidence Evidence
How to use this step
A treatment change requires clinical interpretation of the reaction, your diagnosis, other products and medicines, the equipment, and your prescribed plan. General sunburn advice is not a phototherapy plan.
What if itching is the main change I notice?
Itching can happen during a phototherapy course, but it does not reveal the cause or tell you that it is safe to continue. Report itching that is new, strong, persistent, or getting worse to your treating team. Evidence Evidence
How to use this step
Tell the team where the itching occurred; whether the skin also felt hot, painful, tender, swollen, or blistered; and whether you recently changed a medicine or skin product.
What should I record before I call?
Write down when you noticed the concern and which areas were involved. Record what you saw and felt, how it changed, and the exact device and protection used. Include recent medicine or skin-product changes. This helps the conversation but cannot prove the cause. Evidence Evidence Evidence Evidence
How to use this step
A simple timeline can make the event easier to explain and help separate skin or health observations from an equipment concern. Device problems go to the manufacturer or regulator route; effects on your skin or health go to the care team.
Questions that can change the next decision
- For your clinicianWould a photograph or any other details help you review this concern?Saving keeps this on your device and needs JavaScript, which is off in this browser.
- For your clinicianShould I contact the manufacturer about the device separately?Saving keeps this on your device and needs JavaScript, which is off in this browser.
Applicability check
Who was studied?
These fields show what the cited evidence reports about the people and body sites behind outcome or safety claims. “Not reported” means the reviewed source omitted the field; “Pending exact source review” means SteadySkin has not made that determination yet.
Pause further treatment and follow your personal action plan while you contact the phototherapy team. Seek urgent assessment for severe pain, blistering, swelling across a large area, new eye symptoms, feeling very unwell, or whenever your plan directs urgent care.
- Age range
- Pending exact source review
- Condition subtype
- Pending exact source review
- Severity or extent
- Pending exact source review
- Sample size
- Pending exact source review
- Geography and care setting
- Pending exact source review
- Skin tone or phototype
- Pending exact source review
- Race
- Pending exact source review
- Ethnicity
- Pending exact source review
- Body sites
- Pending exact source review
What that means for this page: This is explicitly gated as a safety claim, but exact population extraction is still pending. It cannot publish or support an estimate of individual risk until that review is complete.
Yes. A color change can be subtle or hard to interpret, particularly in deeper skin tones. Report pain, tenderness, heat, swelling, blistering, marked itching, or another concerning change. No obvious redness does not mean it is safe to continue or change treatment on your own.
- Age range
- Pending exact source review
- Condition subtype
- Pending exact source review
- Severity or extent
- Pending exact source review
- Sample size
- Pending exact source review
- Geography and care setting
- Pending exact source review
- Skin tone or phototype
- Pending exact source review
- Race
- Pending exact source review
- Ethnicity
- Pending exact source review
- Body sites
- Pending exact source review
What that means for this page: This is explicitly gated as a safety claim, but exact population extraction is still pending. It cannot publish or support an estimate of individual risk until that review is complete.
Do not adjust, catch up, restart, or create a home-care treatment for the reaction yourself. Contact your phototherapy team for advice based on your plan, skin, medicines, and device.
- Age range
- Pending exact source review
- Condition subtype
- Pending exact source review
- Severity or extent
- Pending exact source review
- Sample size
- Pending exact source review
- Geography and care setting
- Pending exact source review
- Skin tone or phototype
- Pending exact source review
- Race
- Pending exact source review
- Ethnicity
- Pending exact source review
- Body sites
- Pending exact source review
What that means for this page: This is explicitly gated as a safety claim, but exact population extraction is still pending. It cannot publish or support an estimate of individual risk until that review is complete.
Itching can happen during a phototherapy course, but it does not reveal the cause or tell you that it is safe to continue. Report itching that is new, strong, persistent, or getting worse to your treating team.
- Age range
- Pending exact source review
- Condition subtype
- Pending exact source review
- Severity or extent
- Pending exact source review
- Sample size
- Pending exact source review
- Geography and care setting
- Pending exact source review
- Skin tone or phototype
- Pending exact source review
- Race
- Pending exact source review
- Ethnicity
- Pending exact source review
- Body sites
- Pending exact source review
What that means for this page: This is explicitly gated as a safety claim, but exact population extraction is still pending. It cannot publish or support an estimate of individual risk until that review is complete.
Write down when you noticed the concern and which areas were involved. Record what you saw and felt, how it changed, and the exact device and protection used. Include recent medicine or skin-product changes. This helps the conversation but cannot prove the cause.
- Age range
- Pending exact source review
- Condition subtype
- Pending exact source review
- Severity or extent
- Pending exact source review
- Sample size
- Pending exact source review
- Geography and care setting
- Pending exact source review
- Skin tone or phototype
- Pending exact source review
- Race
- Pending exact source review
- Ethnicity
- Pending exact source review
- Body sites
- Pending exact source review
What that means for this page: This is explicitly gated as a safety claim, but exact population extraction is still pending. It cannot publish or support an estimate of individual risk until that review is complete.
Evidence behind this page
Sources
Each evidence badge opens the source and its limits. The full list stays available here.
- Phothera PhototherapyManufacturer · not independentIndependence not established
- Published
- 2026-03-03
- SteadySkin last checked
- 2026-07-31
What this source can and cannot tell you
What this source supports
Supports the current first-party route to Phothera device and accessory manuals and shows that instructions are model- and controller-specific.
What it does not support
It does not establish clinical suitability, comparative benefit, the condition of an individual unit, or that one manual applies to a related or legacy model; each exact linked manual and revision still requires verification.
Automated draft claim mapping withheld from reader-facing evidence details until clinical or editorial review is recorded. This page is not yet approved for indexing.
- Solarc Systems Inc.Manufacturer · not independentIndependence not established
- Published
- 2020-09-18
- SteadySkin last checked
- 2026-07-31
What this source can and cannot tell you
What this source supports
Supports first-party specifications and installation, electrical, protective-equipment, maintenance, and support boundaries for the named SolRx E-Series revision.
What it does not support
It does not support another SolRx family, confirm that this is the newest revision for an individual unit, establish clinical suitability, or prove comparative safety or effectiveness; the owner must verify the exact current manual with Solarc.
Automated draft claim mapping withheld from reader-facing evidence details until clinical or editorial review is recorded. This page is not yet approved for indexing.
- U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationRegulatory / guideline · independentIndependent source
- Published
- 2026-07-31
- SteadySkin last checked
- 2026-07-31
What this source can and cannot tell you
What this source supports
Supports that patients, consumers, and health professionals can use FDA MedWatch to report serious reactions, product-quality problems, product-use errors, and other serious problems involving human medical products, including medical devices.
What it does not support
It does not determine whether a report is required, prove causation, replace clinical care, or replace the manufacturer’s equipment-support route.
Automated draft claim mapping withheld from reader-facing evidence details until clinical or editorial review is recorded. This page is not yet approved for indexing.
- British Journal of Dermatology (Goulden V, et al.)Regulatory / guideline · independentIndependent source
- Published
- 2022-09-01
- SteadySkin last checked
- 2026-07-29
What this source can and cannot tell you
What this source supports
It supports that traditional NB-UVB fluorescent lamps emit a narrow UVB band peaking around 311 nanometres, plus clinical uses, comparisons with other ultraviolet treatments, and safety boundaries including sunburn-type reactions.
What it does not support
It does not provide a personal treatment plan or establish any home-use setting. SteadySkin never reproduces its treatment schedules.
Automated draft claim mapping withheld from reader-facing evidence details until clinical or editorial review is recorded. This page is not yet approved for indexing.
- British Association of DermatologistsPatient education · independentIndependent source
- Published
- 2022-06-01
- SteadySkin last checked
- 2026-07-29
What this source can and cannot tell you
What this source supports
It supports a plain-language explanation that NB-UVB uses a small part of the UVB spectrum, is used for conditions including psoriasis, eczema, and vitiligo, and is distinct from sunlight or a sunbed.
What it does not support
It is patient education, not primary evidence for an efficacy claim. Its own review date must remain current before SteadySkin relies on it.
Automated draft claim mapping withheld from reader-facing evidence details until clinical or editorial review is recorded. This page is not yet approved for indexing.