Mum of twins with excruciating eczema battles to save her boys’ skin
An Aussie mum is going extreme lengths to help her twin boys who suffer eczema so bad they scratch their skin bloody.
When her twin boys, Matthew and Harry, were only three-months-old mum Melanie, 43, started noticing flakey patches of eczema on their skin.
By the time they were four-years-old it had grown so bad they were being wrapped in bandages and smothered in creams to try and calm the itchy red skin, but it was an uphill battle.
‘The boys would itch and pick at the bandages as soon as my back was turned,’ Melanie told that’s life!
She recalls dozing off on the lounge once, leaving Harry unattended and waking to the his painful screams.
‘He’d rubbed through his two layers of bandages and taken off all the layers of skin on his legs.’
‘Bath time looked like a warzone.’
It was during one of these baths that Melanie’s friend, Marion, came by to help and was horrified at the suffering the boys were going through.
With Marion’s help, Melanie started fundraising to get the boys to a clinic in Avène, France, that offered a treatment that could help.
‘The response from the community was fantastic,’ Melanie says.
Since visiting the clinic she’s been astonished at the difference it’s made for her boys, and she’s determined to help other mums in her position.
‘I know too well how draining life with these conditions can be, That’s why I’m determined to make a difference.’
For the rest of Melanie’s story, and other great Aussie stories check out issue 9 of that’s life!
