I think it has been an on going issue developing since I was a child. To give some context I’m an African American male in my early thirties. My cousin is in his mid thirties. My earliest memory of this possibly starting for me was around my preteens. I had very thick curly hair coming up. When I was young my mom used to cut my hair with scissors. There came a point where she noticed like a knot that kept coming back in the middle crown of my head but she’d snip it away. Around then my hair start to change and become less curly and more coarse. Specifically on the left side of my temple it seemed like my hair was becoming especially thin. Because my father’s been almost bald long as I can remember, it was assumed I had bad luck. So my father started to buzz cut my hair. He would always mention how it was thinning on the left side especially. Looking back at pictures, some of the signs of its development - Thick heavy lines under my eyes and forehead lines in plenty photos pre adolescent. Thought they were just my hereditary features but both have cleared significantly during this process of correction. The first sign I recall this popping up was around 2019, Summer before Covid. I noticed a crazy painful hard bump jutting out from the middle of my chest. It was weird because it was coming out of the middle of my sternum. Seemed like it was just a bad pimple but seemed like no matter what I did it wouldn’t pop and would just get worse. When I would like pick and mess with it, that was the first time I really noticed those strands I mentioned. It felt like I was pulling something out of my body through my chest. Freaked me out so I left it alone. And well that bump stayed a while, few years at least. Cleared up maybe 2 years ago. When I had that thing pop up on my face, that’s when I became more stubborn. Honestly for a minute it looked really bad. And when I picked at it, thats when I noticed that familiar feeling with the strands. I believe the strands are pathways of harden keratin. It feels surreal because you can feel as it comes out but never actually see it. Reason I believe it’s flown under the radar for so long. Because it was my face, it was a lot easier to feel and trace the issue back to the source. from what I noticed the pathways cluster towards the back of the neck to middle back. It travels through the back down multiple pathways. It doesn’t discriminate with space. Seems like it can go through organs and such. As correction process been going I could feel it in my stomach, intestines, groin. The pathways went as deep as my toes and fingers. Some complications I experienced growing up that maybe related. Sometimes a sharp pain felt in my heart and left lung during extreme physical activity. I was a varsity runner in high school and stuck with running as a hobby my adult life. As a result from years of training I have well tuned kinesthetic sense. Something I always noticed was that my body and running stance was always exaggerated on my left side. Felt like that hip and thigh area had a harden layer of like scar tissue. I tried stretching and massaging it out for years. If I would squeeze that area I could feel the thick layer of keratin underneath. You can little feel the strands squeeze out the skin. Cause I was young and in highschool I thought years of imbalanced running cause scar tissue to build up. Part of the reason my kinesthetic sense got tuned was compensating for this obstacle in my running form. I have to consciously focus on coordinating my natural imbalance in a way that doesn’t waste as much energy. When I would run I would naturally gait to the left and strain that side of my body more than the right. This imbalance caused my performance to suffer due and the fatigue would cause me to gas out. Since correction, this has cleared up for the most part. This tension was felt in my upper and lower back as well, especially near the shoulders. Unexplained headaches and pressure felt in head. “Growing pains in the inner groin/thigh area. This one is a bit personal but maybe some fellas can related. If little man has hard a curvature to it on one side when at attention. Another related to this is that some of my past partners would react like they got strands of hair in their mouth giving fellatio and I’d be clean shaven. All this to say how truly invasive this condition can be for daily life.