Maggie and Mandy.

Being a mother of someone with ichthyosis I experienced first hand the pain and the challenges experienced by a family when their child with ichthyosis is born. I needed support and information, but very little was available, and therefore when the opportunity arose I was moved to help set up a support network and together with my adult daughter Mandy and a handful of other parents we founded the Ichthyosis Support Group in 1997.

What is ichthyosis?
Lots of people have dry skin conditions (such as eczema or psoriasis) but they tend to be patchy and they come and go. By contrast, in ichthyosis the scaling is continuous and usually affects the whole body.
The skin is made up of millions of tiny cells joined together to form our protective covering. Skin is a living organ which has to grow, adapt and respond to damage. It is constantly shedding (or exfoliating) and being replaced, and these processes are controlled by genes. Mistakes (‘mutations’) in genes cause malfunction. Ichthyosis is caused by mutations in genes that control the formation of skin cells.

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Maggie Aldwin