Lexi Reed is down 100 pounds and celebrating her continued remission from calciphylaxis.
The fitness influencer, who’d lost more than 300 pounds eight years ago, gained about 90 pounds since last year after being diagnosed with calciphylaxis. The rare disease, she wrote in a post on Mar. 6, 2024, “completely turned my life upside down & made me question how strong that I truly was.”
The illness made Reed feel the way she did before beginning her weight loss journey. “Basically, all of the things I wasn’t able to do because of my weight before, now I wasn’t able to do because I was sick,” Reed tells TODAY.com.
Calciphylaxis is a rare disease that causes calcium deposits to build up in the blood vessels of fat and tissue, according to the Mayo Clinic.
But now, Reed is celebrating more than weight loss following months of immobility and pain. Her newest post is about “taking back the fight to live, healing & refusing to take life for granted,” she wrote.
Reed, 33, has previously opened up about her journey with the condition, which she said left her with more than 30 open wounds and in severe pain. She developed it as a complication from dialysis treatment, which followed an unknown illness that caused her organs to fail, including her kidneys.
“(It’s) a disease so rare the doctors had to look it up before they could try to treat me,” Reed wrote in another post. “(It’s) a disease that caused me to have dead necrotic skin that formed excruciating wounds from my thighs to my shoulders & left behind hard calcium deposits that could reopen in the future….”
After rounds of IV treatments, surgical debridement, infusion, transfusions, hair loss and weight gain, Reed celebrated her remission in March 2023. By then, all of her wounds had closed.
“I remember last year when I was unable to walk, wondering if I’d ever be able to walk into the gym on my own again,” Reed posted. “I remember wishing i was able to move my body & just trying to…
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