To Heidi re: hormones/swelling

March 18, 2002

Hi Heidi,

Aren't we the lucky ones! I would take redness and pimples over face

swelling any day. At least zits don't change the shape of your face.

I had a long and painful 2 years of severe face swelling. It was very

gradual, so it took me a long time to notice--I just knew I was starting

to look different. My first symptom was my eyes--I inexplicably had blurry

vision and needed glasses all of a suddden when I had always had perfect

vision my whole life. Then the face swelling seemed to get really bad

overnight--I woke up to big puffy cheeks and extremely swollen eyes. My

nose kept getting bigger over the course of a year. It got longer,

fatter--really big. I normally have a smallish nose for my face, so this,

along with the eye swelling (my eyes are normally very big) really changed

the way I looked. It was such a nightmare to look in the mirror and not

recognize myself. I went to many doctors over the course of a year with no

help (the allergist could see my nose was swollen, but didn't know why and

my derm didn't know why my face was swollen-she just told me I had

extremely large pores--what a help that was!). Finally after about a year

and a half of hell, I was finally able to link my face problems with

hormones and my rosacea. Back on the pill, I knew I was improving when the

constant sweating stopped. The edema seemed to take forever to go down

though--I got very impatient-- but my cheeks got better after about 3

months and my nose about 5-6. My face was more or less normal for about 5

months (this was a year ago) and it would have kept improving--but I

messed myself up again by taking the hormone pill aldactone--long story

why--thought it would help my hair loss from starting the pill again- and

I ended up with hot flashes. Face got bad, but not in the same way-just

burning, redness and slight swelling. Now I am recovering again!

The pill I am on is orthocept. I think mircette is monophasic also. From

what I have learned about hormones, the fewer flucuations the better-that

is why I think monophasic is best. I am surprised your nose has not had

improvement if your cheeks have. My nose did take the longest to show

improvement. Are you still hot and flushing? I would think the pill would

be all you need, unless you need a stronger pill.

Send me your email address so I can email you--I tried to change my

subscription mode from web to email, but it is not working yet, so I don't

have your address.

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