An extremely rare and unusual skin condition has left a 28-year-old Florida woman in an understandably difficult condition which has led to her having put on 100 pounds over the last three years in light of her inability to exercise without incurring a serious skin reaction.
Up until three years ago when the rare skin condition surfaced, the woman lived what the NY Daily News reports to have been a fulfilling life as a dance instructor and gymnastics teacher around Clearwater, Florida.
The woman told KGUN that she “used to be so beautiful,” but now she looks “like a monster.”
I used to be so beautiful, now I look like a monster
Cholinergic urticaria is the name of the skin condition that has left her in a position where she is unable to exercise without breaking out in hives.
According to the woman, Julie Reid, she has no medical insurance and the doctors are unable to help her with the extremely rare skin condition she now has.
While there are those who might write her condition off as trivial, she wrote on her website that one simply does not “realize how much your body sweats until you become allergic to it.”
While the symptoms of the immune system disorder causing her skin to react in a negative fashion to exercise, heat and stress some times last for less than six weeks, the symptoms can also plague individuals for years, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
It’s torture living like this, torture […] It itches like crazy, I scratch my skin open
Reid was quoted by ABC Action News as having said that it is “torture” to live like she has been for the past couple of years since the skin condition surfaced.
To date, the condition Reid suffers from has no cure.
