For young Gemma Vickers, the everyday rough and tumble of living with two younger brothers always had a more worrying side. From the age of three her parents noticed that even a small scratch would often develop into a nasty red, raised scar, and that the scar could end up larger than the original injury. As she got older she started to become anxious about every cut or graze, knowing that it could leave an ugly and unusual scar on her skin.

Her mother Sue said: "We found out early on that Gemma suffers from Keloid scarring. Although everyone could tell me what it was they couldn't offer any treatment and I felt that there was nowhere that I could turn to help my daughter."

"Having keloid scarring started to have quite an impact on Gemma. She became extremely anxious about being scratched by her little brother because she knew what could develop. I wanted to do the best for my daughter so tried as hard as I could to find out more about the condition and ways of improving the appearance of the scars, but no-one was able to help me."

Gemma, now 15 has a keloid scar on her elbow and shoulder from a fall off her bike and two on her knee from key-hole surgery. "When she had the surgery we told the surgeon that Gemma suffers from keloid scarring but he said it would not be a problem. She ended up with 2 keloid scars despite his reassurances."

Sue Vickers found out about a self-adhesive silicone gel sheet, from her boss who saw it featured in a magazine. "We bought some straight away and Gemma started using it on her elbow. After only eight days the scar had flattened out wonderfully, and it was really easy and comfortable for her to use.

"The fact that there is now something that Gemma can use on her scars has taken a lot of her anxiety away. She knows that at some point she will need a small operation to remove a cyst on her neck and before we were aware of this scar improvement this was a major worry for her. Now we feel that there is a way that can help and it makes all the difference."