While getting dressed after taking a shower, I noticed something on my hip. Curious, I kind of positioned myself at a better angle/light.
Stretch marks! :eek:
What makes this kind of freaky (to me, anyway) is that I’m a guy, I weigh 190 and am about 6’2"…why the hell am I getting stretch marks?
I always thought this was something that afflicted pregnant women primarily. I had honestly never heard of stretch marks on guys, but sure enough I have about thirteen ‘lines’ radiating down from my hips/butt area to my upper leg. Oddly enough they are only on the right side. While kind of alarming, I’m not going to get too worked up over it- since the area is always covered up by some kind of garment (shorts/pants/etc) and the only person who is actually going to see them on a regular basis could care less
Any kind of weight gain or stretching of the skin can make stretch marks. I’m 24, no preggies for me, and I have them on my hips and breasts (partly from weight gain - I used to be 215 - but also from suddenly waking up one morning in my adolescence and having a woman-figure instead of a girl-figure).
My husband gets them too, from weightlifting. They are mostly around his shoulder joint, armpits, hips, and I believe I have espied a few on his bottom. Lucky him though, he resembles Casper the Ghosts’ paler cousin, so they just fade and blend into his skin.
The good news is, they fade with time. I advise cocoa butter (you can get it pretty cheaply at a beauty supply store that sells to the public, such as Sally Beauty.
You are certainly not the only man in the world that has been afflicted with them, so take heart.
This exact experience happened to me aged thirteen when I suddenly grew hips. I have a few at the tops of my thighs, too. Most of my female friends have them. I don’t understand stretch marks - if they’re scars due to breaks in the skin, aren’t they supposed to heal?
So guys get them too, eh? That’s oddly comforting.
I feel like stretch marks should be Pitted. Any established parties care to do the honours?
I always associatied them with pregnancy. I simply assumed something like pregnancy (or having some gigantic tumor or something) was one of the only things that could stretch the skin to the point of breaking like that. Similarly, I thought women only got stretch marks on their boobs when they were, um, developing.
Nope, I got them as a developing young woman. Although, oddly, not on my boobs, I have stretch marks on my bum and thighs. Like Sarah Woodruff said, I think it was when I grew hips.
I also recommend cocoa butter, and if you want to prevent them (pregnant women, my mum swears by this, and has two kids and no stretch marks!) use either cocoa butter or baby oil on your skin daily. It might not work for you, but it did for her!
DISCLAIMER: Incubus, I am in no way trying to suggest you might fall pregnant sometime soon. If you by any chance do, however, let me know. Stretch marks in pregnant men is a topic in which there has been very little research, for some reason. Together, we can reverse the trend!
It’s the lower layers of the skin that scar, and it can happen to anyone. My friend Teeny Tiny Tina (so nicknamed because she’s 4’11" and weighs around 80 pounds, sopping wet) has 'em. She has a lot, actually, more than some of our friends who are obese or have been pregnant. It has more to do with the elasticity of the lower layers of skin than the size of the person.
But I think you read that wrong.
I was about 160 lbs just before I hit puberty. Afterwards I grew about 6 inches and lost a few pounds. Basically I was pretty chubby before puberty and then I slimmed down.
Yeah, got them. I’m not sure if they came from growing fast or if they came from cycling - I just to cycle quite fanatically in the summer and the transition from burning all winter fat during the spring to growing serious muscle in the summer could be pretty serious, so I think I owe most of the marks to that. They’ve never bothered me and I can’t even really remember many people noticing them at all (maybe they did but just didn’t say anything ).
It’s not uncommon, I think if women didn’t complain so much about them you’d hardly consider them noteworthy and certainly not know what to call them. If ever there were irrelevant things in live, boy then it’s gotta be stretch-marks. Now if people only worried as much about loving their neighbour …
Funnily enough I was chatting with a friendn of mine about stretch marks only the other day - she’s a forty something mother of five (ages 17 yrs - 2 yrs) I’m a thirty something mother of none. We both have stretch marks but in different places and to a different degree. Essentially we came to the conclusion that my stretch marks are a result of weight loss rather than weight gain - I’ve twice lost a lot of weight (14 + pounds) in a short amount of time (not voluntarily I hasten to add). It just depends how elastic your skin is as to how much ‘damage’ is sustained by sudden changes in ‘volume’.
I’ve seen a number of men with stretch marks on their biceps and shoulder/armpit area, which I always guessed was maybe due to weightlifting. But I haven’t made a concerted study, so I could be totally wrong as to the cause.
I just came in to extol the virtues of Vitamin E oil. Take it orally, and wallow in it, so far as I know it is the best preventative for stretch marks and will also minimize the appearance of them once you have them. I know many women who came out of pregnancy beautifully and they give all credit to precious Vitamin E oil.
According to a couple of plastic surgeons I spoke with (one is known for getting rid of stretch marks, as a specialty thing) there’s no way to prevent them completely, though keeping your skin in good shape might help with the severity and healing. Eat good food, vitamins A D E and K, I believe, moisturize, and try not to gain weight too quickly. To get rid of them, there’s some sort of laser stuff being done right now, but heck if I can remember what.
Yeah, If you ever see an episode of Oz, you can see that the majorly muscly Adebisi has stretchmarks at the tops of his biceps. Not that I watch the show just to see shirtless men, you understand.
Incidently, my mum, who comes from India where children traditionally get massages after their baths with oil or lotion from the time they are babies, has no stretch marks whatsoever. But that could just be genetics (too bad I got my Dad’s dry skin).
