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A health worker blamed her 'moon face' and 'bump' on her back on too many restaurant date nights with her new boyfriend - until discovering it was a brain tumour. Hannah Richards 'started gaining quite a lot' of weight at the beginning of 2023 - soon feeling 'horrendous' and getting 'teary' after piling on three stone. But the 28-year-old's friend suggested it was just 'comfort weight gain' as she was 'happy and content' with her new boyfriend Nathan Baker, 33. The healthcare assistant dismissed it as ordering too many takeaways and going out for food too often on date nights with Nathan. Despite going to the gym and trying to eat healthier Hannah couldn't stop piling on the pounds particularly in her face and back and started getting breathless. However, it wasn't until a work colleague pointed out the healthcare assistant's 'puffy face' that it 'gave her the push' she needed to get checked out. She was diagnosed with Cushing's disease, a rare condition caused by having too much cortisol hormone in your body and can lead to increased body fat and mood changes, in March this year. Hannah admits she was 'relieved' by the diagnosis as it meant she wasn't just 'going crazy'. Doctors suspect it was caused by a benign tumour in her pituitary gland but she is waiting for an MRI scan to confirm this and determine if she needs brain surgery to remove it. She says she wants to spread awareness about the rare condition to encourage others to 'get checked out' if they notice similar changes. Hannah, who lives in Cromer, Norfolk, said: "It's crazy. I'd never in my life heard of it before. During the early stages [of our relationship] we were having more takeaways and doing nice things together. You know when you get into a new relationship and you go out for food a lot and get takeaways a lot and you get comfortable. "People were telling me 'maybe it's just because you're really happy and content in that relationship and that comfort weight gain'. I went back to the gym and ate healthier but nothing was helping, I just kept gaining. I started swimming. No matter what I was doing I wasn't losing the weight. "It got to the point where I'd look back at old photos and I looked completely different. If I put that online on a dating app people would probably think I'm like a catfish. I looked in the mirror and I'd get really teary, depressed and upset thinking 'it's just not who I am anymore'. "It's not just the looks but it's the personality. Your cortisol levels are really high and it affects all your hormones. It's like you're going through an early menopause. Everything changed, my body, my mental health and my personality. It's really tough. You gain weight in your face and they describe it as a 'moon face'. You also gain weight in your upper back; they call it the buffalo bump. "I started to get quite a lot of breathlessness and heart palpitations. It turns out you can gain weight in the front of your chest as well. You gain weight in your belly as well. The only place you don't really gain weight is from your waist at the back and in your legs and your arms because they get smaller in muscle. You feel like your legs and arms are tiny but then you're bigger at the front. "I started to get a lot of stretch marks in between my thighs. I had a lot of hair growth on my arms and side burns, they come through quite dark. My knuckles get quite dark and swollen. I get a lot of dark circles under my armpits and round the back of my neck. One of my colleagues actually said to me 'have you heard of Cushing's syndrome?' I was completely oblivious to it. "She said 'I'm not being rude but your face has got puffier and you're tiny from the back but from the front you're on the larger scale. You should go to your GP'." After her GP referred her to an endocrinologist she was finally diagnosed with Cushing's disease in March. She is now awaiting an MRI scan to detect if the benign tumour is located in her pituitary or adrenal gland. Hannah said: "When they diagnosed me, I cried. I didn't feel upset or shocked, I just felt really relieved. "It's been going on for so long and I was like 'I finally have answers and I know what's happening to my body now'. I wasn't just going crazy. It turns out my pituitary gland is sending signals to my kidneys and it's producing too many steroids, which affects your cortisol levels and your body and your hormones. "They need to take a blood sample from [my pituitary gland] to just confirm it's 100% Cushing's. They need to confirm it's from my pituitary gland and not my adrenal gland. I then need to have brain surgery to remove the pituitary gland from my brain. After that I'll have to go on steroids to even my levels back out again. "Once that's been removed I'll never get Cushing's again, which is a really good thing. Even now I feel horrendous considering what I was before. I used to be quite petite and fit and active." Hannah has been with her fiancé for two years after they matched on Tinder in 2022 and are due to be married next September. She now wants to spread awareness about Cushing's disease and believes it 'needs to be talked about a lot more' to encourage others to get themselves checked out. Hannah said: "There's so many things people are unaware of. It's quite scary really. I think it's something that needs to be talked about a lot more. You wouldn't have thought something so small in your brain can change your body so much. I think it's so important that people know about it. "Even if you do have the symptoms and you don't have Cushing's it could lead to something else you never thought it would be. Get checked out because it's your body you know what's right and wrong. Don't let anybody tell you differently because they are not in your body and they don't know what's normal to you."
