Six-year-old Aizza Akhil has a rare skin disorder that makes her look elderly, and classmates call her “grandma”, her family needs money for more surgeries.
Aizza Akhil is only six, but a rare genetic disorder has left her skin loose, sagging, and wrinkled far beyond her years. At school in Wayanad, India, older students have mocked her for it, and she has told her parents the taunts cut deep.
The Sun reported that the girl has Cutis Laxa, an incurable condition that affects roughly one in four million people and is believed to afflict fewer than 500 people worldwide. Doctors say it can worsen with age and may threaten internal organs and immunity. Her family is already stretched thin trying to keep up with treatment.
Speaking at home, Aizza described the bullying in plain words.
"They call me grandma at school. They tease me saying that my skin looks like an old woman."
In July, a group of older students laughed at her and used that label. She ran off in tears. The cruelty landed on a child who still loves to dance, draw, and play with friends, and who already carries a heavy medical load for her age.
Mother Anjali, 27, a housewife, said the pregnancy itself was ordinary. Required scans, ultrasounds, and medicines went as planned. Delivery was by C-section. Aizza arrived healthy, with regular features.
"But by the time she was six months old, we noticed her skin had changed. We could not understand the reason."
By nine months, doctors across Kerala had given the family a name for it. Anjali said she could barely spell the diagnosis and had never heard of the condition before.
"We were told that she has a rare condition, I couldn’t even spell it properly. I had neither heard about it nor could understand what the cause was."
They had taken the baby to more than a dozen doctors in the state before the picture became clear. Cutis Laxa is genetic. There is no cure. Care means daily medication for breathing, regular medical visits, and constant moisturising for dry, itchy skin. Her respiratory system is weak.
Father Akhil KC, 32, works as a security guard and earns the equivalent of about £120 a month. Monthly treatment can run up to 20,000 rupees, around £160, more than he brings home. Earlier this year the family paid almost £800 for plastic surgery after skin around Aizza’s left eyebrow drooped and began covering her eye.
Doctors have warned that more operations will be needed as she grows. Anjali put the bind simply.
"The doctors have told us to be prepared for more plastic surgeries as she grows. We need money for that."
She said the goal is not vanity. It is a safe, healthy life for the only child they have.
"We want her to have a safe and healthy life. God has given us a daughter and we want to take care of her."
After the July teasing, uncle Arjun George went to the school and met Aizza’s teachers. An assembly followed. Students were told what Cutis Laxa is and why her skin looks the way it does.
"Students have become softer towards her now."
That is progress. It does not erase the medical bills, the risk of further complications such as pulmonary emphysema that doctors have flagged as a possible long-term threat, or the reality that a working-class family in Wayanad is being asked to fund repeated surgeries on a guard’s wage.
Aizza still needs daily care. Her parents are still saving and hoping for help. A rare diagnosis does not make a child fair game for mockery, and it does not excuse adults from the hard cost of keeping her well.
Families who show up for a sick child deserve a culture that protects the vulnerable, not one that shrugs when classmates turn a medical burden into a punchline.
