Anetoderma (aka macular atrophy)

Hi, I also have the rare skin disorder of Anetoderma. I'll tell you my story....I was about 13 years old and in the 7th grade when it all started. I have it mostly on my inner thighs and a little bit on my lower legs. When I was in the 6th grade I got a wart..or what I thought was a wart on the inside of my left leg. I didn't wear shorts because I was embarrassed by the sight of it. It was there for a year and one day i went swimming at the river with some friends. I had jumped in the water and somehow caught my nail on the side of it almost ripping it off. But I didn't get lucky enough for that to happen. Nobody in my family knew that I had this on my leg and I didn't want to ask my mom to buy that wart remover stuff, I was hoping it would go away on its own. Then a few weeks later three more showed up around my "wart". I thought they were warts at first but I knew that they couldn't be. They looked like pimples on my leg that were hard and very sore. As the days went by more and more were showing up and eventually started on my other leg. But only on the inner thighs, and a few showed up on the lower parts of my legs. It got so bad that they were popping up next to eachother and my whole inner thighs were covered by them. I didn't know what was going on, I wanted it all to go away. I didn't tell my mom, nobody knew a thing. And I understand that probally wasn't the best idea, but I was 13 years old and figured it would just go away. Every time I went to the bathroom and pulled down my pants I wondered if there was anybody else out there with the same problem. When summer time came I didn't wear a swim suit, I wore warm ups in the river..never went to the public pool at all. For the next year I went through alot of pain. My pants would rub against them when I walked and sometimes it would feel like my legs were bleeding! I seriously would run to the bathroom cuz I could feel the blood trickling down my leg..but there was never any blood. By the time I was in the 8th grade the pimples started to go away and I was so happy...but as my skin started to smooth out a little from the red bumps, it started to sink in making a scar where each red bump was. So when all the bumps were gone I was left with horrible scars all over on my inner thighs and the spots down on my legs. I learned to know that I was going to be scarred for the rest of my life and I would have to deal with it. But I tried my hardest to keep it from everyone. But my mom saw a glimpse of my legs when I was getting dressed one day for school and asked me what was on my leg...I only showed her the few that were on the lower part, the worse of it all was up higher. She was really worried and made me a doctor apt asap. My doctor had me lay on the table and spread my legs open, very uncomfortable for me, and that was my mom's very first time actually seeing the problem I had, she was in shock. The doctor spent alot of time looking at my scars and had no clue what it was. He sent me to a dermatologist who knew right off the bat what it was. He went and got a book that only had a small paragraph on Anetoderma. he told me that it was one of the rarest skin disorders and the patient usually knows more than the doctor. But he usually see's it show up on the arms and back. He told me there was nothing he could do but was sure that it only goes through one process so I wouldn't have to worry about any more showing up. From then on I never wore shorts again. High school came around and I had to do P.E. and that ment swimming for two weeks. I would wear shorts over my swim suit to hide my scars. I'm 25 years old now and haven't had any more break outs, but I still live with the scars. I'm no longer self conscious about my scars and wear shorts...I've always wondered about anetoderma and have looked it up online in the past, but never really found too much on it. I've looked at pictures, but haven't seen anything like mine. My whole inner thighs are nothing but a bunch of circle scars, most of course are connected so its pretty much one big scar that looks and feels very strange. One thing that I wonder about is if my body could handle a pregnancy? I know that Anetoderma is caused by lack of elasticity, so I'm not sure how my skin will react to it stretching for a baby to grow inside. I know I would get the worse stretch marks in the world, but how far out can my skin handle it with not having the greatest elasticity? Anyways, I saw this web site and read that you were looking for someone with the same skin disorder..and here I am...I was looking for someone too.