Zara Hartshorn from Rotherham, South Yorkshire has been making the headline since a very young age. She is 16 now but shockingly she suffers from a rare disease that makes her look as if she was going into her 50’s! Can you imagine waking up and knowing people will stare at you everywhere you go??
Zara Hartshorn suffers from lipodystrophy, a condition that decays bones, destroys fatty tissues and generally makes people who suffer from it appear much older. When Zara went public with her disease last year at age 15, she looked much older and said that she frequently suffered abuse from bullies. After that, she learned she had an even rarer illness: cutis laxa, which weakens joints and causes heart and lung problems.
The teenager was contacted by Dr. Robert Ersek, who offered her a free face-lift and nose augmentation. Zara’s condition is incurable, but post-surgery, she feels like she’s finally able to have a normal life with her boyfriend, Ricky. “I tell her she’s beautiful every day,” he says.
what do you think of the before and after??? But she is not the only one who suffers fro the ageing disease also known as “reverse Benjamin Button Syndrome” but also her mother and sister. Her mom Tracey Gibson, 41 and sister Jolene Hardy, 23 and Zara, all have the incurable genetic condition.
Zara along with her mother and sister have suffer the confusion and embarrassment of the condition. At the age of 11 she was handed a lesson plan at school by a teacher who thought she was also a teacher, and she is often refused a child’s ticket on transport and at the cinema. From that point on she has always been mistaken for a middle-aged-woman!
Zara lives with her family and has another sister, Chloe who has not been affected by the disease. Her father’s name is Lawrence Gibson.
Would you support her on her decision of plastic surgery?? What if it was you?? Kuddos to her on being so brave and going through with it!
She looks so much better huh!
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