Page 16 - IAV Digital Magazine #541

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Georgia Toddler Diagnosed With Extremely Rare Uncombable Hair Syndrome
By Beth Galvin
ROSWELL,
Ga. - Sixteen-month- old Lock Samples has grown up sticking out.
Everywhere
the Roswell, Georgia toddler goes, his mother Katelyn Samples says, he turns heads.
"We can't go any- where without some- one making a com- ment, whether it's the park or Publix," Samples
says. "People come up to us, they ask to touch it. They're very curious about his hair."
Lock Samples was born with typical baby hair, just like his big brother Shepherd, who is 3 years old.
But, when he was about 6 months old, Katelyn Samples says, Lock's locks started to take off.
"I was going to my mom and asking her, 'Did I have hair like this," she says, laugh- ing.
When they try to wash it Lock's hair, it was hard to get it wet.
"Then, as soon as we would dry it, it would not lay flat, even if we brushed it," she says. "As soon as it dries, it pops back up."
And the Roswell tod- dler doesn't seem to mind the attention he draws
"Even at the doctor's office, it's almost like an episode of House; there's always a lot of
doctors in the room, and he just eats it up," his mother says.
Still, for months, the Samples didn't know why Lock's hair was doing this.
"And, then a stranger messaged me on Instagram," Katelyn Samples says.
That stranger told her Lock might have a kind of one-in-a-mil- lion heredity condi- tion, known as "uncombable hair syndrome."
"I got nervous because I'd never heard of it before," Samples says.
She Googled it, then called his pediatrician.
"And, they were like, 'We know Lock, and we know his hair, but we can't really help you here, so we're going to send you to directly to a special- ist,'" Samples remem- bers.
That is how they ended up at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
"We went into the dermatologist's office and several other doctors came in," his mom
remembers. "They took pictures of his hair, and they took
samples of his hair."
After studying Lock's hair under a special microscope, a pathol- ogist confirmed he has one of about 100 known cases of uncombable hair syn- drome.
"The hair strand is like a triangle shape and twisted," Katelyn Samples says. "Every single individ- ual strand is that way."
The Samples learned the syndrome doesn't affect Lock's health, and kids with it usual- ly have fine, light-col- ored, dandelion-like hair.
His mom says his hair is so fragile she can- not use gel or styling products on it without risking breakage.
Still, Samples says, this kind of wash-and- wear hair does come with some benefits
"The older one, we have to wrangle him down to get ready and do his hair and brush his teeth, but Locklan wakes up ready to roll," she says.
They get a lot of com- ments, she says, most of them friendly, but not always.
"We were at Waffle House on
Thanksgiving and an older woman looked at us and said, 'Oh, my gosh, that baby wakes up every day with a bad hair day,'"she says. "But kids are like, 'That baby has the coolest hair!' Kids are into it. They love it."
Lock Samples even has his own Instagram
account, @uncom- bable_locks, with about 3,100 followers.
Katelyn Samples has been touched by the response to his pho- tos.
"It's the amount of parents who've reached out to me, saying, 'Thank you for sharing your story. I thought my child was the only one to have hair like this,'" she says.
There is a chance that Lock Samples will outgrow uncom- bable hair syndrome once he reaches puberty.
If not, Katelyn Samples says, they are okay with that.
"I love it," she
says. "We're so proud of it. I think it's cool to have something that lets you stand out. "We really con- sider it a blessing."
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