Okay… I’ve been reading some more about fat and steroids (corticosteroids).
It’s fairly common knowledge that you get a redistribution of fat around the body when on steroids, and there are some good theories about why this happens, but essentially it’s straight forward biochemistry. We’ll get onto that in a minute as I don’t think there’s enough (or posssibly any) layman’s explanations of why this should be going on in your body.
But first, let’s look at why I’m getting obsessed and possibly a little irritatated about this.
Before being diagnosed with PF and being put on corticosteroids, I had already decided and been advised by a nurse at my local GP to lose some weight to avoid complications over the next 10 years, such as strokes, heart disease (like I need another) and diabetes, as I am pre-diabetic. I totally accepted that to heart, and the steroids are messing it up.
I don’t like it.
As if by magic last night, I suddenly realised that if you ignore the pinkness and the rash on my face (which IS getting better VERY rapidly at 60mg/day of Prednisolone, plus 1000mg Of MMF), then I magically look 10 years younger. Where have my wrinkles gone?
The steroids gottem.
Okay, I can live with that, my face doesn’t look too different to the way it always has, it’s just not 57yo wrinkly any more. It now looks like I’ve had a few skillful shots of botox all over to remove the wrinkles, and the nice thing is I haven’t lost the definition of my face… yet… so it does still look like me, and even a younger me.
The problem I now see in front of me is that my face won’t stay this way and it will progressively start to puff out and go round. “Moon face” you see it described as online. My first thoughts were I may have no choice about this happening, and it will go ahead with or without my input.
And then, I started reading about what causes this to see if anything can be done about it and it turns out I think I can. I could be totally wrong, but maybe I can do something about it and the reason I think that is because some people aren’t affected by corticosteroids in this way. One person ballons and puts on weight, and another doesn’t. This could be down to purely individual physiological reasons, but maybe the ballooners can do something about it with a modified diet. I am all for trying this.
I will try to keep this short and sweet and as non-technical as I can, both for myself for future reference and as an explanation to friends and family (and anyone else finding and) reading this.
Why do I do these things? Because I need to know. I’ve always been driven to understand the world and what makes things tick – it’s a sort of a curse of the scientific mind when you don’t actually want to be a scientist because you don’t have the patience or inclination, but still want to know WHY?
I’ve gathered the information together I needed to work this out with a couple of web pages, plus some dictionary definitions to explain some technical terms. I’ll tooltip them so you can hover over them without having to go hunt them down like I did.
Ready? Let’s go.
Why Do Steroids Make You Put On Weight?
