Painful medical conditions are difficult to deal with at any stage of life, but they are particularly traumatizing for young children who do not understand what is happening to them. This was the case for two-year-old Carter Padelford, who was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him “looking like a fish”.
Born “as red as a tomato” back in November 2016, the toddler was diagnosed with lamellar ichthyosis when he was just three days old. It is an extremely rare condition which affects just one in 10,000 people in the US. As a result of the condition, he was unable to close his eyes or move his body properly.
Check out the video below to see what Carter looked like at the height of his condition:
Lamellar ichthyosis also causes the skin to crack, which is why Carter was described as looking like a fish because of the scales this caused. Unable to sweat either, his body temperature was completely unregulated.
Carter’s parents, Shai-Anne Sifford and Zach Padelford, both 21, initially treated his condition by rubbing large amounts of coconut oil and shea butter into his skin. They also gave him two oatmeal baths a day in an attempt to relieve him from the constant pain it caused, but it did little to improve the youngster’s quality of life.
In addition to this, they had to exfoliate his skin in three separate ways – a painful process which they dreaded inflicting on their toddler.
However, everything changed for Carter when his desperate parents decided to change his extensive routine by mixing cannabis oil into the butter and oils they were using to treat his condition.
“When he was born, his skin was as red as a tomato and so tight to touch. It looked painful. He couldn’t even close his eyes,” Shai-Anne, a full-time mum, said.
“He was diagnosed with lamellar ichthyosis three days later.”
“Basically it means that his skin builds up into scales like a fish and it limits his ability to move.”
“It stops his ability to sweat which means he’s intolerant to temperature.”
“Babies with this are at a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) because if they get too warm they can suffocate.”
“He couldn’t even close his eyes,” Carter’s mother continued.
“I was using a no-touch thermometer about eight times a day to keep his temperature stable.”
Doctors recommended treating Carter’s condition with a medication called AmLactin, but it had no real effect.
Shai-Anne, however, as a medical marijuana user herself, decided to try a novel approach after reading an article about how cannabis oil can be used to treat chronic skin conditions. She first used the oil on her son in August 2017.
The family lives in Las Vegas where the use of cannabis oil is completely legal.
Now, the family has said that Carter is a completely different child as his condition has almost been cured by the oil. The majority of his scales have disappeared, and, as a result, he is no longer in pain from it cracking all of the time.
Better still, the skin on the toddler’s eyelids has now loosened which means he is almost able to close them completely, something which is no doubt helping him to get the sleep he needs.
“Doctors didn’t offer us much advice or help. I feel they neglected us because they didn’t know what was going on,” Shai-Anne said.
“They told me to keep him covered and to avoid baths and to come back in two years when he was two.”
“It was traumatizing. There were no road signs and so few treatment options.”
“For a while, we used to do two oatmeal baths a day with baking powder which helped disinfect his skin and exfoliating him every few days.”
“I used to spend my days just lathering him with coconut oils and homemade organic creams.”
“I was at my wit’s end with it when I read about cannabis oil and the benefits it can have for people with skin conditions like Carter’s.”
“I’m a medicinal user so I decided to try it.”
“I began to put it into the homemade creams with shea butter and essential oils that I was already making.
“Seven months later he doesn’t even look like the same child. He used to have no hair because of his scales but now his hair is starting to grow.
“He used to have open sores that would be bleeding, but his skin has almost completely cleared up.”
Shai-Anne has now said that she feels completely let down by the medical system because there was such a simple solution available to Carter’s problem. She intends to use the cannabis oil indefinitely out of fear that his condition will regress without it.
“The standard way to treat this is a drug called AmLactin, which is a lactic acid that burns away the top layers of skin.
“Other patients I’ve met with this disorder say it feels like they’ve been put in an oven when they apply it.
“I’ve tried it for Carter, but it just wasn’t working. Other than that we’ve had no support from doctors in terms of a treatment for this.
“I feel without the cannabis oil, he wouldn’t have a life.”
Hopefully, Carter’s story will lead to changes in how doctors treat lamellar ichthyosis.
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