Dealing with Moon Face
Written by Natasha Kacharia from the United States
Featured photo by Erin Profaci from Pexels.
I never thought about myself as a superficial person. But if someone asked me about the worst part of living with ulcerative colitis, it would not be the hemorrhaging of blood, the vomit, the diarrhea, the stomach cramps, the sleepless nights, loss of muscle, or the joint pain.
It would be moonface. It would be the fat deposited on my cheeks and neck making my face appear round like the moon.
Whenever I enter a flare, my doctor prescribes me oral steroids called prednisone. Desperate for relief, I always agree and consume the prednisone without protest. A couple of the many unfortunate side effects of prednisone is weight gain and moonface. Thus, whenever I start on prednisone, I also make an effort to watch what I eat to help minimize the side effects. But it never works. And, everytime, in addition to having my clothes not fitting, my face abnormally expands, making my cheeks puffy and my pointy chin a double chin. I get moonface.
I learned to handle weight gain. I wear my classic XL Stanford Christmas sweatshirt in the winter and my oversized CS t-shirts in the summer. No, I never liked how my body looked on prednisone, but I could hide it. But how do I handle moonface? I cannot exactly cover up my face, even with a mask.
And, what my friends and family fail to understand is that it is one thing to hate your body - everyone hates their body to some extent - but to hate your face is an entirely different beast.
There is no escaping your face. Your face is what you stare at when you brush your teeth or you enter a zoom meeting. It is the first part of you that a person looks at when they meet you. Your face makes your first impression.
And moonface is not the first impression I want to make. I tell people that I used to be a nationally ranked roller skater, and they don't seem to believe me. I tell people about my past romances, and they don’t seem to believe me. To them, I look like a slightly overweight girl who fell victim to freshman fifteen, even the people who know about my ulcerative colitis do not entirely believe that my face is simply a side effect of a medication. It is not their fault. I have a hard time believing myself too. Flare me and remission me always feel like an entirely different person. A different entity.
Because the girl with moonface spends an hour long zoom meeting distracted by how puffy her cheeks are, she wears a mask everywhere - partially because she is high risk but mostly to cover up her face. She misses random guys flirting with her. She misses believing someone when they call her pretty. She misses how the world treats her because let’s face it; the world is easier to the pretty and skinny.
So, no, I never really thought about myself as superficial, but it is easier to dig deeper than the skin when you like the surface.
