Ichtyosis

Yesterday is just another ordinary day in my clinic. Nothing interesting that i can tell you about. Not much of patient from morning until evening. probably due to people are busy with school just starting and they have other things to do and decided to postpone in taking medicine. i suppose...

but as i was about to get ready to go home, a patient came with his parents. The patient is about 1year 6months old. He had previously came to my clinic before. This time he came due to fever and cough with mild nasal congestion. What is so special about him?

Well, he has a congenital disorder or hereditary disease called ichtyosis (ikh tee yo sis). The condition causes the skin to peel and be scaly. In Malaysia people would call them to have 'kenan ular'. sometimes the person that has ichtyosis would only affect certain parts of the body, but if the person has a severe form of the condition it would affect the whole body. The condition also causes the child to scratch his body almost all the time because it is very itchy to him. i can't post his picture as i did not have the consent of the parents to do so.

The main reason that i'm writing this entry is that i feel for the future of the boy. even though he has a very caring and understanding parents from what i see, i'm still afraid on what the people around him would say. i just hope that he would grow up in confidence and not be shy about his condition. because sometime we tend to see on what is infront of us, not what is underneath it.