Madhya Pradesh: At the age of six, Lalit Patidar, a 17-year-old student from the village of Nandleta, Madhya Pradesh, received a diagnosis of hypertrichosis.
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What is Hypertrichosis?
Hypertrichosis is characterised by excessive hair growth on the body as a whole.
Only 50 persons in the world are thought to have had the illness since the Middle Ages due to how uncommon it is.
Lalit has hair covering every inch of his body. His classmates refer to him as “monkey boy” and claim they worry he’ll bite them.
“I come from a normal family, my father is a farmer, and I am currently a senior in high school studying in 12th grade. At the same time I help my father in his farming work,” Lalit told the sources.
He added, “I have had this hair my whole life, my parents say the doctor shaved me at birth but I didn’t really notice anything was different about me until I was around six or seven years old. That’s when I first took notice that the hair was growing all over my body like no one else I knew.”
Lalit went on “Since then I have found out it is because I have a condition called hypertrichosis. It is rare and as far as I know only fifty people in the world have been affected by this. There is no history of hair growth conditions in my family, I am the only one who has this disease.”
Lalit hasn’t complained about his illness, but his parents are really concerned about him.
He stated, “Small children used to get scared seeing me, and as a child I did not know why. As I grew up I realised that my whole body had hair and that was not like everyone else. Kids were worried I would come back to bite them like an animal.”
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The ailment Lalit has, has no known treatment.
“I do trim it if I feel it is getting too long. It is like head hair, it will continue to grow, I have no other way to manage it,” explained the boy.
He said, “I am different from common humans in a good way, I am unique. I got to learn many things during my journey, most importantly I got to learn that I am one-in-a-million, I should never give up and live life to the fullest I always want to move forward and be happy. I am different, but most of the time our differences are our greatest strengths, and I am proud to be me.”
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