our girls so hairy

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Our girl's so hairy people call her 'wolf girl'

Monday 06 October 2008

Eight-year-old Nat Sapsupan suffers from a rare genetic mutation that causes thick, long hair to grow all over her face and parts of her body.

Teased for her appearance by other children, who’ve dubbed her “wolf girl” and “monkey face,” Nat had always wanted to fit in. And just recently, her parents shaved off the hair so Nat could see her face for the first time. Although the hair grew back after a few weeks, Nat loved the experience.

“It was strange not to have hair on my face,” says brave Nat. “But I liked it much better. “Having hair isn’t good. I cry if people tease me, and people stare and point.”

In most ways Nat, whose older sister Nan, 13, is unaffected by the condition, is like any other girl her age. She loves going to swimming lessons and dressing up.

But she suffers from a condition called Ambras syndrome or “werewolf syndrome” and is one of just 50 known cases. “I feel desperately sorry for my daughter,” says Nat’s mum Sompon, 37, from the family home near Bangkok, Thailand. “The doctor told us he’d never seen a child born like this."

“People look at us everywhere we go,” adds her dad Samreong, 38, who like his wife earns a living making lucky charms in a local studio. “They often ask: ‘Is it a mask?’ When I tell them it’s real they touch her face.”

Nat’s parents have tried several times to get rid of the facial hair that blights their daughter’s life. When Nat was two
they took her to a salon to remove it using painful laser treatment. It seemed to work, despite leaving Nat bruised and irritating her eyes – but within a month the hair grew back. They also tried hair removal cream, but that gave Nat a rash.

Nat’s parents had avoided shaving her face in case the hair grew back even thicker – but doctors reassured them that it wouldn’t and, after years of just trimming the animal-like fur, her dad recently spent an hour trimming the hair, then shaving her with a disposable razor.

When he’d finished, Nat couldn’t stop looking in the mirror and touching her face, while her parents tried to work out who she’d inherited her looks from – they hadn’t seen her without hair since she had it removed with the laser as a toddler.

The hair has now grown back, but her parents have decided not to shave her regularly because Nat found it left her young skin painfully sensitive.

Instead, the family are pinning their hopes on a scientific breakthrough that will cure Nat’s condition – but so far experts haven’t been able to identify the cause of it.

Until then Nat’s parents tell her she’s beautiful as she is. Sompon says: “We try to teach her it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

By Victoria Raymond
See Nat on Real Wolf Kids, Thursday, 9pm, Discovery Channel