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Hello, Readers

Many, many people visit this blog every day to read my post on Sectoral Heterochromia. My blog actually ranks within the first five results on Google for those keywords, and my photo is high in the image search results.

So, if you're one of those visitors who has chosen to come back and read new posts, say hello!

I've got a fun project in mind that requires others with Sectoral Heterochromia, so please let me know if you're interested in learning more.

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Last night, I got out a box of old pictures and scanned them, something I'd been meaning to do for awhile. I'm starting to see age in my childhood photos and I figured I should start getting them into JPEG files in case they get really bad.

I uploaded a few to my flickr account. Here's one of my favorites.



Oh, young Nissa. There's so much I want to warn you about, but sadly...I cannot...

(Oh, for fun, free pendant to anyone who knows where I opted that quote from...)

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Sectoral Heterochromia

I have a sectoral heterochromia in my left eye. It has been there ever since I was young. I just learned that term, sectoral heterochromia, two weeks ago when an advertisement for the (awful looking) movie "Unborn" prompted me to google search this particular condition. In the horrifying ad, the protagonist has a half colored eye, which in this particular movie, means that she is a Chimera. This made me excited. Could I be a Chimera, since I too have a half colored eye? Well, only one way to find out: Google. While I'll spare you the minute details, I found nothing that pointed to Chimera positively, but also a slew of other genetic disorders that could possibly be at fault for my strange half brown, half green eye.

From Wikipedia:

In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, due to genetic mosaicism, or due to disease or injury.^[1]

Eye color, specifically the color of the irises, is determined primarily by the concentration and distribution of melanin.^[2][3][4] The affected eye may be hyperpigmented (hyperchromic) or hypopigmented (hypochromic).^[5] In humans, usually, an excess of melanin indicates hyperplasia of the iris tissues, whereas a lack of melanin indicates hypoplasia.

Heterochromia of the eye (heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridum) is of two kinds. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other. In partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, part of one iris is a different color from its remainder.

Partial or sectoral heterochromia is much less common than complete heterochromia and is typically found in autosomally inherited disorders such as Hirschsprung's disease and Waardenburg syndrome.

Eh, wha? I was trying to figure out if I had a resorbed twin, and instead I find out that I could have a genetic disorder. This wasn't a good discovery. Luckily, I found an even better possibility. Some bloggers and other researchers who have looked in to heterochromia suggest that it is a sign of royalty, because it's oft found in European roayls (including Alexander the Great), and the gene is passed through family DNA, and generally must be present on both sides of the pool. However, my parents know of no other people in our family who have ever had this condition, except, of course, me.

I don't really pass the criteria for those genetic disorders from the Wiki article, and well, maybe I'm some Scandinavian princess, which would be cool, but I was really pulling for a resorbed twin. I suppose there is no way for me to ever really find out unless I went through some heavy duty medical testing, which I don't really want to go through, so for now, I will dream about being a Chimera Princess.

::UPDATES::

It's been awhile since I made this post, and have been enjoying the comments coming in over time. Thanks for leaving your stories :D

I'm going to try and add additional resources here when I find them.


MORE SECTORAL HETEROCHROMIA RESOURCES

Yahoo! Answers: Heterochromia
Sectoral Heterochromia Flickr Group
Facebook Group for People with Sectoral Heterochromia

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