Weight?

[Archive]

Originally posted by Chris

O.K., It looks like there is a lot of controversy over the weight factor. Since we have no real scientific standards to judge this, take it for what you will. I have had KP on my arms since puberty. But it was not untill I was about 19 that I started getting it in other places. First, it started on my upper thighs, then around my ankles. The only reason why it would be limited to these areas, it seems, is related to a change in the WAY I DRESSED. I grew up in LA, and would wear shorts pretty much year round, mostly with no shoes, almost never with socks. I am not sure the CAUSAL mechanism is for KP, but it seems related to the areas where clothing rubbed against my skin. That is, the more I wore socks the worse the KP got on my ankles, and the more I wore pants the worse it got on my upper thighs. As I got older, and began to put on some poundage, I also noticed more KP. Perhaps the relationship is less with weight, but has something to do with tightness of clothing associated with weight gain? I also noticed that the first place I got KP on my left arm was where I wore my watch. This may suggest that one of the drivers of KP is irritation caused by the rubbing of clothes.
I have noticed tons of people with KP on the back of their arms, but I have also noticed that people with more widespread KP do tend to be a tad bit overweight. Of course, the problem that we all face here is that part of being a human is having selective memory. I really wish that we could scientifically control for all of our speculations!! With up to 40% of the population of the US being affected for at least some part of their lives there has got to be some money to be made. I can't beleive that pharmaceutical companies could have no interest in finding effective treatments for it.