I respond to slow-healing wounds from Cushing’s with self-love
While it's hard to accept, I must love the only body I have
Slow-healing wounds are one of the Cushing’s disease symptoms that most annoy me. In the time that a regular person heals from a wound, my healing journey has barely scratched the surface. For example, I have an infected ingrown toenail that I’ve been warding off for two months and a popped pimple that’s taken several weeks to disappear.
These wounds make me feel as if I’m in a perpetual state of healing. To be safe, I have a doctor look at most of them to ensure that they’re healing properly, albeit slowly. That means I have to check in every few weeks about a different wound, scratch, or skin issue.
My thin skin and poor healing ability cause a ton of scars. I have tiny burns from cooking that have never healed and marks and stretches my body created when I first got sick. They never went away.
It’s been hard for me to accept that my scars are just another reality of my body. The skin on my stomach and next to my breasts has deep scarring, which has made me self-conscious. Getting tattoos around these marks helped. What doesn’t help is all of the discourse on social media about healthy, young skin. I’m 28, and because of my illness, none of that applies to me.
I’m OK with my skin being imperfect, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge occasionally feeling like something has been stolen from me. I see pictures of people with perfect stomachs and no striae and think, “My stomach will never look like that again.” Or I’ll get a cut at the same time as a friend and theirs will go away in a few days while mine scars.
Sometimes I want to wrap myself up in a bubble to take care of my body and skin, but that’s not reasonable. As much as I want to hide myself, I get only one body, and even if it doesn’t always work the way I want it to, ”
For now, I’m trying to treat my wounds as carefully as possible. I have an endless supply of Neosporin and Band-Aids, and I soak in Epsom salts every week. My doctors are all a quick message away, so when I need antibiotics or additional treatment, I know exactly where to go.
Some parts of Cushing’s disease will never change for me, and slow-healing wounds are at the top of the list. As much as they make me want to scream, they’re just a part of who I am. I love my body — scars, wounds, and all.
You can also follow my journey on TikTok and YouTube.
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About the Author
Corina Yuen
Dear Noura, thank you for sharing your story. I had a pituitary adenoma. When I was in active disease stage, my skin was so thin that when I fell down and hit my shin on the door threshold, a big chunk of my skin was skimmed off so that you can see raw flesh. It took months to heal. Now that I am in remission (I have not fallen since), I don't get bruises like before. I think I am like normal. Are you saying that for Cyclical Cushing's, you can never gain remission? You will always live with symptoms as if you are always in active stage? My hug for you. Take good care of yourself. Thanks again.
Noura Costany
Thank you for sharing this with me!! For me, I have a recurrence, so that's why I'm not in remission. Between tumors, I was really doing well for about a year! <3