Has anyone else here experienced Necrobiosis Lipoidica Diabeticorum?
It's a skin rash, usually on the legs and feet, which affects mostly young adult women diabetics. There's no cure, and treatments just make it look a little better.
I recently developed this rash, which I was told is not technically a complication of diabetes, just a condition correlated with diabetes. Mine isn't bad, as I use a topical steroid cream on it. But it does look bruised, I have raised bumps, etc. No ulcerations or anything though. Generally, mine looks a million times better than the scary pictures of it you can find online. (I certainly hope mine never gets to the point of those pictures!)
I was diagnosed with NLD about 20 years ago. It was on my right shin in a couple patchy areas, bright red, itchy, swollen, and painful. I saw a dermatologist who injected it with something (I was a teenager at the time so I didn't ask a lot of questions so I have no recollection of what he may have injected it with). It's appearance changed and it became somewhat pale and rather waxy and the skin thinned out. In fact, the skin in the area is rather thin to this day. When it was "active" (for lack of a better word) people would notice it and ask me about it all the time. It was probably about a year after the injections that it no longer bothered me in the least. It did leave a scar, which people would ask about, but was less noticable than when it was active. A few years ago I fell hiking and really tore that area open. I think it was much worse because that skin was so thin. When that healed over, it looked a little worse for wear but at least now when people ask me about it, I can say "I fell hiking" instead of explain the long story about NLD and the string of questions that follow that about T1. "I fell hiking" is so much easier:)