The tabloids are making much of revelations that a teenager born with Ambras Syndrome, which causes excessive hair growth, has been photographed with a man reported to be her new husband and is now presenting a new, shaved look.
But the story of Supatra ‘Natty’ Susuphan, 17, from Bangkok, Thailand, is one that merits a different telling.
Susuphan suffers from a form of hypertrichosis, unflatteringly dubbed the “Werewolf Syndrome.”
The 17-year-old has been the focus of intense scrutiny over the years.
She was named the hairiest girl in the world by Guinness World Records in 2010 and has been featured in a number of documentaries.
“She has lots of hair on her arms and other parts of her body,” her father said in this Barcroft TV interview, recorded when Susuphan was 10 years old.
“The hairiest part is her face and her back.”
“It does sometimes make it difficult to see when it gets long,” she added. “My mum cuts my hair for me sometimes, when it gets long she will trim it.”
There was teasing early on, though, her mother tells in a Diagonal View documentary.
“When she first went to school, the other kids teased her and called her monkey face,” said Somphon Sasuphan. “But that doesn’t happen now. Now she has a lot of friends at school.”
The girl appears to have forged into a personal point of pride—the distinction of being officially named the World’s Hairiest Girl by Guinness.
“I am really happy to be in the Guinness Book of Records,” she said matter-of-factly in the interview. “Some people try really hard to get in it but I just answered questions and I got a medal.”
According to Barcroft TV, the girl is well-adjusted and tries to live life to the fullest.
“She has taken up dancing, singing, and acting. She loves listening to Thai pop music and makes her own dance routines to the latest hits with her friends.”
Nicknamed ‘Nat,’ she is one of only 50 documented cases of Ambras Syndrome
since the Middle Ages.
Before the disease was understood, those afflicted were sometimes shunned, even branded “werewolves” and persecuted.
Modern medicine understands the condition to be caused by a faulty chromosome.
And now, according to the Daily Mail, Susuphan has found love:
“Her social media feed suggests she has found happiness with her unnamed husband after she posted, ‘You’re not just my first love, you’re the love of my life.'”
From The Epoch Times
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