Teen With Rare Skin Condition Uses Her Body As An Etch A Sketch

Emma Aldenryd, from Aarhus, Denmark, has a rare skin condition in which her skin flares up. Whenever she touches her skin it turns red and swells up. The rare skin condition is known as dermatographia. While others need tattoo needles and henna to make drawings on their bodies. Emma just uses a pencil or her finger to trace out whatever she wants to see on her body. the traced area then gets red and gets swelled up.

The patterns and the drawings made are visible when her skin flares up and turns red. Her skin reacts when she draws on it. Emma’s conditioned came into notice when three years ago her friend pointed out that her arms were red and swollen. The now 18-year-old teenager also learned that two of her cousins also have this rare condition. But till now she has not met anyone else with the same rare skin condition.

It is just not the flaring up and the redness of the skin that Emma has to deal with. Her skin gets super itchy when it flares up during over the period she has learned how to ignore it and not let her rare skin condition impact her life negatively. Just to make something positive out of her life she started making drawings on her arms. The drawings she makes on her arms are not a permanent drawing it disappears after 30 minutes making Emma an Etch A Sketch.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsjZT5qB4_7/

Emma explained in her words and said: “People who I showed were impressed, especially after they tried to do the same on their skin but couldn’t do it. Lots of people question whether it hurts, but my dermatographia has never hurt. I did get some wild reactions and some people thought I was dying.”

She further shared that “I try and do lots of symbols that everybody will understand like smiley faces or well-known words like Hi. I do the designs with a pencil so that the lines are crisper. If you did them with anything else it would make the designs less readable as the swelling would become broader. Usually, I do them quite quickly, in under a minute so that the designs are even when I photograph them, for aesthetic reasons.”

The doctors treating her, prescribed antihistamines to help her with her rare skin condition. But because Emma is not bothered by her condition she decided to stop taking her prescription and decided to draw on her arms. She also has an Instagram @dermatographia_, the page where she showcases her drawings. She draws smiley faces, flowers, and love hearts to keep her followers entertained.

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