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A British mum-to-be has revealed details of a bizarre pregnancy symptom that left her thinking she was “becoming an Avatar”.
24-year-old Keisha Sethi said she became concerned that she was leaving blue stains on things that touched her body.
“So, yesterday I went to the toilet and when I got off the toilet seat it was blue. Literally, blue. And I was not even wearing any blue yesterday,” she told followers.
She also showed off a white singlet and her pink sheets left with blue stains.
Sethi and her partner turned to Google, staying up into the wee hours researching her curious symptoms and finding other women reporting them.
She found a possible answer: chromhidrosis.
Sharing a screenshot, she said it was “very relieving to know that a few other women have experienced this” and said she was genuinely baffled because she thought she was “becoming an Avatar”.
Healthline describes it as a “really rare condition” in which the body produces an excess amount of lipofuscin.
Lipofuscin is essentially pigmented granules that collect in cells throughout the body. With chromhidrosis, the extra lipofuscin in the sweat glands causes you to sweat in colour. Of the many colours of sweat reported with chromhidrosis, blue is one,” the website states.
But Healthline also counsels that chromhidrosis does not fully explain the number of pregnant women who claim to be turning sheets and toilet seats blue, noting that there is no evidence in medical literature that chromhidrosis is more common among people who are pregnant and the rarity of the condition makes it an unlikely explanation for these many anecdotal reports from pregnant women of blue staining.
“In chromhidrosis, the coloured sweat is typically located in three places: the face, the armpits, and the breasts,” Healthline noted.
“These aren’t exactly body parts that come in contact with the toilet seat.”
The mum-to-be said she turned her toilet seat blue.
It also suggested that new jeans could be causing the discoloured toilet seats and concluded that, while they don’t believe the claims are invented, there is not a “truly satisfying explanation” for the rash of online reports.
Sethi’s post went viral and she found others who experienced the same symptoms.
“IT HAPPENED TO ME!! I thought I was turning into a Smurf!!” one said, while another claimed it was a “hormone thing”.
“Everyone thought I was crazy,” wrote another mum.
