Reflections Of A Phat Chick! Part 1:

After 37 wonderful years, one sits back and reflects...don't they?   I am.  Looking at where I've been, where I've ended up, and where I'd like to go.  My weight has always been an issue.  I grew up learning to lean on food for emotional comfort...silly as it may seem.  Pretty unhealthy way to view a sustaining life force.  I don't think it was really ever an evident, self-defined problem until after I had my son.  I was 26 years old and always managed to maintain my weight at about 135 pounds without trying.  My five foot three inch frame wore that weight comfortably, but by no means was I a "skinny mini".  I was happy there.  When I was in my early to mid twenties, I started to notice that my skin was losing it's pigment on my hands.  How odd...no clue as to why.  Never went to the dr. about it, just thought it was something wierd, some vitamin deficiency.  No one else in my family had it, my parents, my sister...hmm...no big deal right?  I later found out I was pregnant with my first child.  What a blessing!  But a year later, that baby weight was terribly difficult to get rid of.  During my pregnancy, I gained about forty pounds with my son and during the last trimester of my pregnancy, I had developed an undiagnosed case of gestational diabetes.  Ever since, I have done nothing but battle my weight.  I would lose ten or fifteen pounds just to gain twenty or twenty five.  Keep in mind, at this time, I was also a smoker.  *sigh*  My poor endocrine system was being run through the wringer and I didn't even know it!  I didn't even know what a thyroid was, much less how it worked and what it did in my body....or more importantly, what it WASN'T doing in my body.  Just in the last five years, I have done enough research and found that my skin condition is called Vitiligo and is an autoimmune disorder.  According to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology, this disease affects an estimated 1% of the world's population. It affects individuals of all ethnic origins and both sexes, but is much more easily noticed on darker skin as areas that fail to tan. It is hereditary in one third of those affected. Vitiligo often starts on the hands, feet or face, and frequently pigment loss is progressive. Half the patients first notice vitiligo before 20 years of age. It often appears in an area of minor injury or sunburn.
It is believed that vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder (autoimmune means the bodies own immune system turns on itself). Certain white blood cells direct the destruction of melanocytes. People with vitiligo are also somewhat more prone to other autoimmune diseases, such as alopecia areata, autoimmune thyroid disorders, Addison's disease, pernicious anemia, and diabetes mellitus.   Well....that answers a question or two, now doesn't it?  Crap!  To find out that maybe this wierd skin pigment thing I had developed was also paired up with something that was hindering my weight control problem!  Both of my parents had been diagnosed with hypothyroid disease.