Bizarre Skin Condition Makes Little Girl Look Like an Old Man
A baby girl in China suffers from a bizarre skin disease that makes her look like an old man.
One-year-old Yuxin Xiaoli is thought to be suffering from cutis laxa or elastolysis, a rare, inherited or acquired connective tissue disorder in which the skin becomes inelastic and hangs loosely in folds. The disease is characterized by skin that is loose, hanging and wrinkled, resulting in a prematurely aged appearance.
Little Yuxin's face is covered in wrinkles, her cheeks are sagging and the skin on her body is even looser than the skin on her face, according to Daily Mail.
Yuxin's 23-year-old mother Yang says that her daughter's skin was loose when she was born.
"We didn't pay much attention, as we thought all kids were like that," Yang said, according to Daily Mail.
Yang added that previous pregnancy checkups did not indicate that anything was wrong.
"And she was a 9lb baby - a big one," Yang said. Now, at 18 months old, Yuxin's condition is getting worse.
"She looks like an old man," said her grandmother Cao Niu, according to Daily Mail. "Last time I took her to visit a doctor, another kid was scared and cried heavily."
"I am reluctant to take her out, as people stare at her like an alien," Yuxin's grandmother added.
The little girl also has congenital heart disease, pneumonia and asthma, and spends most of her time at the children's hospital located in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China's Henan Province. Yuxin's hair needs to be kept very short so that medics can administer drugs through an IV tube and injections into her head.
The family has spent more than 80,000 yuan ($13,000) on her treatment, and despite Yuxin's declining health, her family said she has a lot of energy.
'She is quite active and smart and she imitates others' facial expressions quickly,' Cao Niu said.