A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I really don't have much of anything to say today, but I came across this picture that I thought was just beautiful and I wanted to share it with you all.

This is six year old Hali, who has ED, having some summer fun.

You guys have no idea how much I love this picture :)

To read the story that goes with this image, click here.

Want To Connect With Others With ED? Want an iPad2? Look No Further!

Things have been crazy lately. With the semester winding down, tonight is the first night in a while where I really don't have to do anything (and I can even sleep in tomorrow morning!). It's pretty awesome, especially after a few nights of going to sleep around one thirty when my normal bedtime is about two hours earlier. So what do I do with all my free time? Well scan the latest news on NFED.org for some new information to share with you guys, of course! No critical life changing breakthroughs today, but I did find something that I thought was worth sharing. The Nation Foundation of Ectodermal Dysplasia is currently asking those with ED to take part in a registry that they are creating to help diagnosed individuals and their families connect with other families that are affected by ED as well as clinicians and scientists. There is even a function on the website where you can submit questions to experts about ED at no cost to you. The page lists these as their main focuses:

Objectives

• Characterize and describe the ectodermal dysplasias population.
• Assist the development of recommendations and standards of care.
• Facilitate in the planning of clinical trials.
• Accelerate and facilitate clinical trials by locating potential research participants quickly and efficiently.

It's really simple to take part in this registry. All you have to do is click here, register on the website, and complete your profile. It took me about twenty minutes to complete total (granted, I didn't know some of the answers to the questions they posed, but you aren't required to answer every single one so no worries there). And the cool part is that this registry isn't limited to just the United States- it's international! There are groups from Australia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom that are all taking part in this! And as an added little bonus, everyone who registers as part of this registry before July 18, 2012 and answers all of the questions is eligable to win an iPad2! So go check it out now!

Know Your Body, Know Your Symptoms

Today was a very educational day for me, but it started off by a pretty scary experience. It started this morning while I was getting ready just like every other day. I woke up about eight o'clock, laid in bed for about fifteen minutes piddling on my iTouch, then grabbed my clothes and my towel to go take a shower. While I was showering, something happened that's I've never experienced before: I collapsed in the shower. Not only once, mind you, but twice. It was really strange. I was almost done when I started feeling a little nauseous. It rapidly went from a feeling I barely noticed to the sudden feeling that if I didn't sit down right away I was going to throw up. While trying to get out so I could go sit down, I fell. I don't remember falling. I only remember knowing right before that I was going to fall, going limp with no way to break my fall really, and then that I was on the ground. After that, I tried getting back up, only to be greeting with another wave of nausea and the shower tiles yet again. When I finally did get out and get to sit down, I felt rather confused and a bit dazed. Of course the medium pitched ringing in my ears didn't help this either. When I left the bathroom, I also caught a glace at myself in the mirror: I had no color in my face whatsoever and I hardly recognized myself. What had just happened?

Well, to be honest, I can't answer that question just yet. I haven't been fully examined by a doctor so I don't know if this was just some random one time incident or if I should be worried about it happening again in the future. But, being my normal curious self, I wasn't just going to sit around and ignore what had happened. It turns out that one of the possible side effects of Incontinentia Pigmenti is actually seizures. Shows how much I know about my own disorder, right? Well this got me to thinking... If this actually was a seizure, what does that mean? How would I know if it was a seizure? If it was, is it typical for such a thing to start nearly two decades after someone is born? So for answers to all these questions, I referred to my in house expert on seizures and epilepsy: Mandy, A.K.A. EpilepsyBlogger. 

What she told me frightened me a bit; she said that my experience this morning sounded a lot like the experience of someone having their first seizure, and that it's common for seizures to start when a person is between eighteen to twenty years of age. She also said that having little to no warning before a seizure is pretty common place as well. Granted, she isn't a doctor herself and isn't qualified to dictate what is and isn't a seizure, her short talk with me prompted me to look into this a bit more. While the nurse on campus chalked it up to a lightheaded sensation, more or less, I'm definitely going to get this checked out more once I get back home after finals. If more mornings like this are to be in my future, the least I can do is be better prepared. Maybe that way I won't have to miss class and work to get checked out again.

Anyway, the point that I wanted to get across with this post is a fairly simple one: know your body, know your symptoms. Ectodermal dysplasias come with such a wide variety of symptoms that it's better to be over informed and know of symptoms that are possible that you don't even have then to be ill prepared in the face of a medical emergency or unusual situation. To be prepared is to take care of yourself. Just something to keep in mind.

The Boy Who Doesn't Sweat

The boy who doesn't sweat.: 7 year old Owen McCulloch has ectodermal dysplasia, a disorder that among other things, makes him unable to sweat.


This is a video that I thought was awesome. The part that really got me was when he said having ectodermal dysplasia was fun because he got ice blocks. Check it out, just click on the link!