[the above picture is not my legs, I'm a fatter person but the same difference applies between the "thin" leg and bigger leg...]
I am diagnosed with lymphedema, it makes one leg bigger then the other, it is about twice the size of the other leg. This happened right as I gained weight. I also have it in my stomach. Add to this congestive heart failure--many people do not realize fat people in the ultra weight categories, can get acouple hundred of pounds of fluid on them, it builds up making you "fatter". They always think the fat guy who weighs a 1000lbs being put in the hospital and losing a few hundred in a month, lost it since the hospital was restricting his food, no in most cases, its fluid removal. My 350lb father once had 100lbs of fluid removed and this one friend of mine now deceased, went to the hospital weighing 500lbs and came out weighing right under 400lbs. They can't give everyone a Lasix IV, its risky so you have to be in short of breathe, acute heart failure, but sometimes, when I have days when the fluids get out of control, I get tempted to just get self hospitalized. Instead I usually take to my bed, to get the water off, ingesting glasses of lemon water, an extra Lasix and it works, but it can be very difficult.
If someone was to ask me, what is your worse, most painful disability, I would say it is the lymphedema, and whatever heart problems are putting so much pressure on my body. This requires me to lay down 4-5 hours a day during a waking day so fluids decrease. I know what its like to lay down in bed, and get up to pee, pee, pee. Sorry if this is getting too graphic, but that is the way this works. There is part of me that sometimes wonders if I really weigh something like 380 in fat, and when heart went bad from all the cardiomyopathy, [in my case caused by the untreated hypothyroidism] if this is when all the fluid came on. For those who want to hound the "lazy" fat people, one problem I face, is the more activity I do, and life did include a few short walks, going out, and doing a lot more things in the last couple weeks, is the more I bloat up.
I know I talk about some nitty gritty stuff on this blog. I do get over a few thousand hits on this blog per month, so I know someone is reading. I figure why not tell people how life is really like for the super-supersized, why sugar coat it? By the way, I started bloating when I hit the 380lb mark, just so people know. That is actually where my weight gain, massively accelerated....
I can gain and lose, at least 50lbs within days. Weight Watchers, when I used to get weighed there, would express shock over 20-30lb dips and increases within the week. Anyhow, I do not know if it was too many olives, or eating acouple dill pickles--I seem to have this bad salt craving that never goes away, or just being able to get out more beacuse the weather has been cooler and I've been a prisoner busting out of housebound cage, but I managed to push myself into a big bloat a thon yesterday being forced to take to my bed, after visiting a music show, one can literally see the fluids grow. I know that my waist can differ from as much as 7 inches alone from water. Yes I am serious. The stomach in my case where it hangs and the left leg have lymphedema. My body is not normal, I still wish I could be truly studied rather then just maintained, and doctors could figure out why my head and feet are so much larger then normal people's, or why my arms and legs are so much thinner then the middle of the body--well at least in the case of ONE of my legs or why I have gone deaf, or why I am turning more brown--all over. My thin 'good" leg could be attached to a woman of only 250lbs or so, and no one would be the wiser.
I went from 6-7 leg infections a year, to one so far this year, so there is some improvement that way, but lymphedema is a scary thing. I did almost lose my life once, circa 2001, trying to do too much, where both the stomach and leg got infected. I had a 105.5 fever, got blood poisoning and nearly died, so this stuff is nothing to mess with. My leg has put me in the hospital for weeks at a time, though oddly, the last 5-6 years or so, I've managed to say out, and learned my lesson about keeping antibiotics on me at all times, and resting enough.
What is bad about lymphedema, is of course obesity makes it worse, but then how do you lose weight when everytime you "do" more and get more 'active", you start bloating like a balloon? It's not an easy thing to cope with. If anyone else reads this has lymphedema, please share....
