35 year old American Man
During the past few months I have been to several doctors (all reputable, and one considered one of 8 best rheumatologists/dermatologists in the world) regarding the skin lesions, which began when I turned 35. I really haven't gotten many new spots, and they are small, but this condition has been troubling to me (as all of us).
I have been given diagnoses that range from idiopathic interface dermatitis, lupus, lichenoid pityriasis chronica, lichenoid pityriasis acute, lymphamotoid papulosis, variant of lichen planus, and of course the one that started everything 2 years ago, Degos-like reaction pattern. I was taking aspirin, plaquenil, trental daily, and plavix for a while but stopped it since I was bruising badly, and tired of shaving with a styptic pencil in other hand.
I have gone for over a hundred blood tests, most regarding clotting factors, lupus, vasculitis', glucose blood serums, connective tissue disease tests, liver profiles, and some really specialized blood tests detecting internal inflamation and vascular problems, etc..- ALL normal.
Anyway, to make a long story short, my doctor ran some new blood tests checking my hormone levels, and checked off on the form a c-peptide test just for the hell of it. Turns out, some of my hormones were out of range, and my c-peptide was very high. So I went to a very good endocrinologist. After further tests, turns out I have the following:
- hyperinsulinemia - too much insulin in blood , a condition not found 85% of time due to having to catch it at the right moment, and is a precursor to diabetes type 2.
- NASH - nonalcoholic something hepatitis (fatty liver?) - a surprise because I am certainly not overweight by any standard.
My endocrinologist is certain that the hyperinsulinemia is causing the skin lesions. Anyway, I was put on actos, a drug for hyperinsulinemia. I still take the aspirin and trental (lots of heart problems in family, so why stop it), but have stopped the plaquenil. In the past month, my skin, which for past 2 years has had lots of pimples and red spots/blotches, has cleared up dramatically.
Now I am not saying that all of us have this insulin problem, but the doctors really do feel that even though we have similar skin spots, the causes can be different in each of us. But you never know, so I am passing this information on so that you can be tested for insulin problems, nash, etc.. My skin has cleared up tremendously!
The following is a link about high insulin in blood regarding endothelial proliferation and occlusion - which I am sure all of us have read about regarding these lesions:
Insulin and Cardiovascular Disease
Insulin is a so-called mytogenic hormone. It stimulates cell proliferation and cell division. If all of the cells were to become resistant to insulin we wouldn't have that much of a problem, but all of the cells don't become resistant.
Some cells are incapable of becoming very resistant. The liver becomes resistant first, then the muscle tissue, then the fat. When the liver becomes resistant it suppresses the production of sugar.
The sugar floating around in your body at any one time is the result of two things, the sugar that you have eaten and how much sugar your liver has made. When you wake up in the morning it is more of a reflection of how much sugar your liver has made. If your liver is listening to insulin properly it won't make much sugar in the middle of the night. If your liver is resistant, those brakes are lifted and your liver starts making a bunch of sugar, so you wake up with a bunch of sugar.
The next tissue to become resistant is the muscle tissue. What is the action of insulin in muscles? It allows your muscles to burn sugar for one thing. So if your muscles become resistant to insulin it can't burn that sugar that was just manufactured by the liver. So the liver is producing too much, the muscles can't burn it, and this raises your blood sugar.
Well the fat cells become resistant, but not for a while as it takes them longer. So for a while your fat cells retain their sensitivity.
What is the action of insulin on your fat cells? To store that fat. It takes sugar and it stores it as fat. So until your fat cells become resistant you get fat. As people become more and more insulin resistant, their weight goes up and up.
But eventually they plateau. They might plateau at 300 pounds, 220 pounds, 150 pounds, but they will eventually plateau as the fat cells protect themselves and become insulin resistant.
As all these major tissues, your liver, muscles and fat, become resistant your pancreas is putting out more insulin to compensate, so you are hyperinsulinemic and you've got insulin floating around all the time, 90 units or more.
But there are certain tissues that aren't becoming resistant such as your endothelium; the lining of the arteries doesn?t become resistant very readily, so all that insulin is affecting the lining of your arteries.
If you drip insulin into the femoral artery of a dog, there was a Dr. Cruz who did this in the early 70s by accident, the artery will become almost totally occluded with plaque after about three months.
The contra lateral side was totally clear, just contact of insulin in the artery caused it to fill up with plaque. That has been known since the 70s and has been repeated in chickens and in dogs; it is really a well-known fact that insulin floating around in the blood causes a plaque build-up. They didn't know why, but we know that insulin causes endothelial proliferation . This is the first step as it causes a tumor, an endothelial tumor.
Insulin also causes the blood to clot too readily and causes the conversion of macrophages into foam cells, which are the cells that accumulate the fatty deposits. Every step of the way, insulin is causing cardiovascular disease. It fills the body with plaque, it constricts the arteries, it stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, it increases platelet adhesiveness and coaguability of the blood .
Insulin is a part of any known cause of cardiovascular disease. It influences nitric oxide synthase; you produce less nitric oxide in the endothelium. We know that helps mediate vasodilatation and constriction, i.e. angina.
I mentioned that insulin increases cellular proliferation , what does that do to cancer? It increases it. And there are some pretty strong studies that show that one of the strongest correlations to breast and colon cancers are levels of insulin.
Hyperinsulinemia causes the excretion of magnesium in the urine. What other big mineral does it cause the excretion of? Calcium. People walking around with hyperinsulinemia can take all the calcium they want by mouth and it's all going to go out in their urine.
35 year old American man - Joe06877ct@aol.com
Page last modified on 6 February, 2007
